Cbe  ambet0t  15ook0 


ESSAYS   IN  BIBLICAL 
INTERPRETATION 


ESSAYS   IN   BIBLICAL 
INTERPRETATION 


BY 

HENRY   PRESERVED   SMITH 

DAVENPORT   PROFESSOR   OF   HEBREW   AND  THE   COGNATE 
LANGUAGES   IN    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY 


BOSTON 

MARSHALL  JONES    COMPANY 
1921 


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€> 


5' 

Si' 


COPYRIGHT-I92I-By 
MARSHALL    JONES    COMPANY 


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THE    PLIMPTON    P E E S S  •  N 0 R W 0 0 D  •  M A S S • U • S  •  A 


PREFACE 

THIS  book  does  not  claim  to  be  a  history  of  Biblical  inter- 
pretation. It  is  an  attempt  to  illustrate  certain  ways  in 
which  the  Old  Testament  part  of  our  Bible  has  been  treated 
in  the  course  of  the  Christian  centuries.  Since  almost  every 
theologian,  Jewish  or  Christian,  has  directly  or  indirectly  com- 
mented on  the  Scriptures,  a  complete  history  of  this  branch  of 
science  would  seem  to  be  beyond  the  powers  of  any  one  man. 
The  index  to  Diestel's  work,  a  work  to  which  I  have  often 
referred,  shows  that  he  consulted  nearly  fourteen  hundred  differ- 
ent authors.  The  result  is  to  bewilder  rather  than  to  help  the 
inquirer.  Some  account  of  the  main  currents  of  thought  in 
this  department  can  be  gathered,  I  venture  to  hope,  from  the 
following  pages. 


^-51209 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  Hebrew  Literary  Methods 3 

II.  Legalistic  Interpretation 14 

HI.  The  Triumph  of  Allegory 33 

IV.  Scholasticism  Dominant ^g 

V.  Luther's  Appeal ^3 

VI.  Protest  and  Reaction 84 

VII.  Attempt  of  the  Federal  School 94 

VIII.  Rise  of  a  More  Historical  View 102 

IX.  The  Influence  of  Pietism 112 

X.  Endeavors  after  a  Biblical  Theology 120 

XI.  The  Bishop's  Problem 128 

XII.  The  Significance  of  Wellhausen 136 

XIII.  Historical  Interpretation 143 

I.    THE  PLACE  of   WORSHIP I44 

II.    sacrificial  WORSHIP 1 49 

m.  THE  priesthood 153 

IV.    ORIGINALITY  OF  THE  PROPHETS 1 58 

V.    Sm  AND  ATONEMENT 161 

XTV.-SoME  Survivals i68 

XV.  Apocalyptic  Vagaries 176 

Bibliographical  Note 193 

Index 195 


ESSAYS  IN  BIBLICAL 
INTERPRETATION 


ESSAYS   IN    ^ 
BIBLIGAL   iNTEkPRETATION 


ITERARY    METHODS 

^th  an  ancient  book  we  need  to  enter  into 

^authorXtnind.    This  means  that  we  must  know  his 

ei^iromarent,  his  habits  of  thought,  and  his  purpose  h 

fing.  ywhere  the  object  of  our  study  is  a  collecjiern  of 

dtings,  like  the/one  we  know  as  the  Old  TestameaO^^Tnust 

eiji^avor  to  understand  each  of  the  contribj 

"^tand  the  whole  movement  of  which  this^jg^ltection  is  tnjg  monu- 

■  ment  wemust  bring  the 

tion> '6f   time  and  sp^Ggr-^'^'^^  process   thus  iddicated 
^.--efiticism.^ 

These  truism^^  plai^V  i»it*lv  LluMieed^f  criti(5rsm  for  a 

the  necessity 
Ranted.  As^-gc^jnatter  of  fact,  however, 
Eion,  has  been  made  to  critical 
investigation  bi  this  Book,  and  this  on  two  grounds.  In  the 
first  place  a  tesidition  has  attached  itself  to  it,  and  this  tradi- 
tion is  interwoven  with  certain  religious  experiences.  To  dis- 
turb the  tradition  seems  to  threaten  religion,  and  religion  is 
rightly  regarded  as  one  of  man's  most  precious  possessions.  In 
the  second  place,  Hebrew  literary  methods  are  so  unlike  those 
to  which  we  are  accustomed  that  when  described  by  the  critic 
they  are  met  with  incredulity.  It  is  thought  to  be  absurd  to 
affirm  that  men  made  books  in  the  way  in  which  the  critics 

^  Criticism  of  the  text  of  an  ancient  document,  which  aims  to  recover  its 
original  wording  is  of  course  of  primary  importance,  but  it  is  not  here  under 
discussion. 

3 


4      ESSJX^  .mM:BUCAL   INTERPRETATION 

discover  the  Hebrew  books  to  have  been  made.  What  this 
is  is  now  a  matter  of  common  knowledge.  For  one  thing  it 
is  pointed  out  that  the  ancient  author  was  so  careless  of  his 
reputation  that  he  took  no  pains  to  attach  his  name  to  his 
work.  Unless  Ezekiel  be  an  exception,  no  one  of  the  Old 
Testament  writers  is  known  to  us  by  name.  To  us,  to  whom 
the  fame  of  authorship  is  dear,  this  is  almost  incomprehensible. 
We  should  place  the  crown  of  laurel  on  the  head  of  the  poet 
of  the  book  of  Job  as  readily  as  we  place  it  on  the  brow  of 
the  poet  of  the  Iliad.  He  has  cheated  us  of  the  opportunity, 
and  himself  of  a  monument  more  enduring  than  bronze,  by 
preserving  his  anonymity.  Moreover,  when  the  Bible  is  pre- 
sented to  us  as  an  authoritative  code  we  are  tempted  to  think 
that  its  authorship  should  be  certified  in  some  official  way. 
A  Protestant  theologian  advanced  the  theory  that  the  various 
books  of  the  Old  Testament  as  soon  as  they  were  written  were 
posted  in  a  conspicuous  place  in  the  temple  that  all  the  people 
might  take  knowledge  of  them,  and  that  when  sufficient  oppor- 
tunity had  been  given  they  were  taken  down  by  the  priests 
and  carefully  preserved  in  the  archives.  Needless  to  say,  the 
theory  has  no  support  in  the  documents  themselves,  which  are 
as  careless  about  notarial  authorization  as  they  are  about 
authorship. 

In  answer  to  the  not  unnatural  demand  for  some  sort  of 
security  on  this  head  a  tradition  early  arose  which  endeavored 
to  assign  the  Biblical  books  to  certain  men  whose  names  are 
made  known  to  us  in  the  books  themselves.  A  post-biblical 
Jewish  document'-  affirms  that  Moses  wrote  his  own  book, 
the  section  concerning  Balaam,  and  Job;  Joshua  wrote  his  own 
book,  and  the  last  eight  verses  of  the  Pentateuch,  which  relate 
Moses'  death,  though  some  of  the  Rabbis  thought  that 
Moses  wrote  this  also  at  the  divine  dictation;  Samuel  wrote 
his  own  book,  Ruth,  and  Judges;  David  wrote  the  book  of 
Psalms  at  the  hands  of  the  ten  elders  —  Adam  the  first,  Mel- 
chizedek,  Abraham,  Moses,  Heman,  Jeduthun,  Asaph,  and 
the  three  sons  of  Korah ;  Jeremiah  wrote  his  own  book,  Kings, 

-  Babylonian   Talmud,  Baba  Bathra,   14b   and   isa. 


HEBREIV  LITERART  METHODS  5 

and  Lamentations;  Hezekiah  and  his  company  wrote  Isaiah, 
Proverbs,  Song  of  Songs,  and  Koheleth;  the  men  of  the  Great 
Assembly  wrote  Ezekiel,  the  Twelve  (Minor  Prophets),  Daniel, 
and  Esther;  Ezra  wrote  the  genealogies  in  Chronicles  down  to 
his  own  time. 

It  is  obvious  from  the  date  of  this  document,  as  well  as 
from  the  absurdity  of  some  of  its  statements,  that  it  rests  on  no 
historical  data.  What  could  be  less  rational  than  to  say  that 
David  wrote  Psalms  'at  the  hands'  of  Adam,  Abraham,  Mel- 
chizedek,  and  Moses,  all  of  whom  lived  long  before  his  own 
time?  The  absurdity  is  a  little  less  if  we  suppose  the  Rabbis 
meant  that  the  books  were  edited  rather  than  written  by  these 
worthies,  and  something  of  the  kind  may  have  been  in  their 
thought.  In  any  case  the  tradition  is  simply  the  product  of  a 
desire  to  give  the  Hebrew  books  authority  by  attaching  them 
to  the  names  of  men  prominent  in  the  history  of  their  own 
people.  The  only  result  of  our  study  of  it  is  to  throw  us  back 
onto  the  internal  evidence  of  the  books  themselves. 

Examination  of  the  books  and  their  comparison  with  each 
other  brings  one  fact  to  light  almost  at  a  glance.  This  is  that 
at  least  some  of  the  books  are  the  result  of  a  compilatory 
process.  Putting  the  two  parallel  narratives  of  Kings  and 
Chronicles  side  by  side  we  see  that  the  later  author  has  bor- 
rowed freely  from  his  predecessor.  He  did  not  do  what  a  mod- 
ern writer  would  have  done  —  work  up  the  material  taken  from 
his  sources  into  a  homogeneous  story.  He  took  considerable 
blocks  of  the  history  of  Kings,  copying  word  for  word.  Be- 
tween these  sections  he  inserted  other  material,  the  most  of  it 
quite  different  in  style  and  tone  from  the  earlier  matter.  In 
other  words,  the  Chronicler  follows  the  method  which  the  critics 
think  they  discover  in  other  Old  Testament  books,  the  method 
which  has  met  with  objurgation  and  ridicule  as  if  no  sensible 
man  would  use  it.  Undoubtedly  it  is  difficult  for  a  modern 
author  to  recognize  this  method  as  legitimate.  But  we  must 
remember  that  the  idea  of  literary  property  was  unknown, 
that  is,  it  had  not  dawned  on  men's  minds  that  the  originator 
of  a  book  had  a  right  to  forbid  any  one's  making  what  use  of 


6      ESSATS  IN  BIBLICAL  INTERPRETATION 

it  he  pleased.  The  book  was  the  property  of  the  man  who 
bought  it,  and  it  never  occurred  to  the  Chronicler  that  any 
objection  could  be  raised  to  his  treating  the  earlier  narrative 
as  he  thought  fit.  What  he  actually  did  is  visualized  in  the 
Polychrome  edition  of  the  Hebrew  text,  where  the  blocks  of 
red  color  show  the  material  taken  from  the  earlier  source,  the 
Chronicler's  additions  being  left  white.  Any  one  can  produce 
the  same  effect  by  using  a  red  pencil  on  the  passages  parallel  to 
the  book  of  Kings. 

The  question  naturally  suggests  itself  whether  if  the  book 
of  Kings  had  perished  we  could  still  be  sure  that  the  Chron- 
icler had  followed  this  method  of  compilation.  The  answer 
cannot  be  doubtful.  The  sections  inserted  by  him  differ 
markedly  from  those  which  he  borrowed.  The  rule  is  the 
general  rule  of  literary  criticism,  namely,  that  difference  of 
style  indicates  different  authors.  It  is  indeed  true  that  in 
some  cases  a  single  writer  uses  different  styles.  But  it  is  also 
true  that  each  of  his  styles  has  the  marks  of  his  own  person- 
ality. We  can  think  of  no  reason  why  the  Chronicler  should 
use  two  different  styles  in  adjacent  paragraphs  of  his  narra- 
tive. Had  the  book  of  Kings  perished  we  should  have  been 
able  to  point  out  with  certainty  the  material  taken  from  it. 

Any  one  who  has  doubts  on  this  head  should  look  carefully 
at  the  concluding  chapters  of  the  book  of  Judges,  and  compare 
the  story  in  chapters  xvii  and  xviii  with  the  one  that  follows  in 
xix  and  xx.  The  whole  tone  and  atmosphere  of  the  first  is  un- 
like what  we  find  in  the  second.  In  each  case  there  is  a 
wrong  committed.  But  Micah  when  he  loses  his  sacred 
objects  has  no  recourse.  A  few  friends  and  kinsmen  are  all 
that  he  can  rally  to  his  aid.  In  the  other  case  the  whole  na- 
tion rises  as  one  man  to  punish  the  wrong-doer.  Four  hun- 
dred thousand  warriors  assemble,  lose  twenty-two  thousand 
in  one  battle  and  eighteen  thousand  in  another  without  being 
discouraged,  and  in  their  turn  kill  twenty-five  thousand  Ben- 
jamites.  In  the  story  of  Micah  on  the  other  hand  a  band  of 
six  hundred  warriors  are  all  that  one  of  the  tribes  can  muster 
for  a  foray.    With  the  historicity  of  either  account  we  are  not 


HEBREW  LITERARr  METHODS  7 

now  concerned.  The  sole  point  is  that  the  contrast  in  tone  is 
sufficient  to  convince  us  that  the  two  narratives  were  written 
by  different  men. 

Moreover  a  little  consideration  will  show  that  neither  one 
of  these  stories  fits  into  the  scheme  of  the  book  to  which  they 
are  appended.  The  author  or  rather  compiler  of  the  book  of 
Judges  had  a  very  distinct  motive  in  putting  his  book  into 
shape.  He  was  teaching  his  people  a  lesson  of  loyalty  to  their 
God.  His  theory  of  history  is  that  as  long  as  Israel  was  faith- 
ful to  its  God  it  was  prospered,  but  that  when  it  fell  away 
to  the  worship  of  the  local  Baals  and  Astartes  the  people  were 
delivered  into  the  hand  of  the  oppressors.  Deliverance  came 
when  they  repented,  and  it  came  in  the  person  of  a  divinely 
commissioned  leader  and  hero.  The  hero-stories  in  the  book 
are  the  examples  to  prove  the  thesis.  But  whatever  we  may 
think  of  the  force  of  these  hero-stories,  it  is  clear  that  the 
two  incidents  we  have  been  considering  do  not  fit  into  the 
scheme.  Neither  in  the  case  of  Micah  nor  in  that  of  the  Levite 
and  his  concubine  is  there  any  question  of  the  Baals  and 
Astartes,  nor  is  there  any  mention  of  backsliding  and  de- 
liverance. 

What  we  have  discovered,  without  any  special  bias  towards 
the  higher  criticism,  is  that  at  least  four  hands  have  been  at 
work  in  this  book  of  Judges.  There  was  first  the  collector  of 
the  original  hero-stories.  Then  came  the  theologian  who  made 
the  stories  tributary  to  his  theory  of  backsliding  and  revival. 
Two  appendices  were  added,  each  of  which  had  its  peculiar 
point  of  view.  The  book  of  Judges  is  not  an  isolated  case. 
Most  of  the  Hebrew  books  which  have  come  down  to  us  show 
similar  phenomena.  Even  in  the  latest  period  we  find  that 
editors  or  copyists  did  not  hesitate  to  treat  the  texts  in  their 
hands  with  great  freedom.  The  books  of  Daniel,  Esther,  and 
Ezra,  had  sections  inserted  in  them  which  are  preserved  in 
the  Greek  version,  but  which  the  Hebrew  texts  escaped.  And 
lest  we  suppose  that  the  Old  Testament  is  peculiar  in  this 
respect  we  may  notice  that  Arabic  literatures  gives  conspicu- 
ous examples  of  exactly  the  same  procedure.    We  are  told 


8      ESSJrS  IN  BIBLICAL  INTERPRETATION 

also  that  in  Europe  in  the  Middle  Age  "authors  borrowed  lit- 
erally with  great  freedom  and  embodied  fragments  of  other 
writers  or  whole  books  in  their  own  works."  Further  we  read 
that  they  did  not  scrutinize  closely  the  statements  of  their 
predecessors;  what  had  once  been  handed  down  they  usually 
accepted  as  good.^ 

That  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament  were  treated  with 
great  freedom,  even  after  they  were  regarded  as  in  some 
sense  authoritative,  may  be  illustrated  by  later  writings.  A 
book  which  is  entitled  Biblical  Antiquities  of  Philo,  though 
not  by  Philo  Judseus,  is  composed  in  the  way  illustrated  by 
Chronicles.  The  author  rewrites  the  history  from  Adam  to 
the  death  of  Saul,  and  in  doing  so  he  takes  paragraphs  from 
the  Biblical  text  and  fills  in  between  them  with  other  matter, 
either  derived  from  tradition  or  the  product  of  his  own  imagi- 
nation. The  process  is  visualized  for  us  in  the  translation,  by 
printing  the  Biblical  material  in  italics,  and  the  additional 
matter  in  Roman  type.*  The  result  is  quite  similar  to  what  we 
observe  in  the  Polychrome  edition  of  Chronicles.  Equally 
striking  is  the  lesson  taught  by  the  so-called  Book  of  Jubilees. 
The  author  of  this  book  was  not  satisfied  with  the  history  of  the 
earlier  times  recorded  in  the  book  of  Genesis,  though  doubt- 
less he  regarded  that  book  as  divinely  given.  For  one  thing 
he  wanted  a  more  exact  chronology,  and  he  carefully  reckoned 
the  Jubilee  periods  (of  forty-nine  years  each)  from  the  cre- 
ation onwards,  dating  each  event  of  the  narrative  by  the 
years  within  its  Jubilee  period.  In  the  second  place,  he  sup- 
plied information  which  he  thought  ought  to  be  given  in  con- 
nection with  the  events  recorded  by  the  Biblical  writer.  Thus 
he  tells  us  that  the  angels  were  created  on  the  first  day  of  the 
creative  week,  Moses  having  neglected  this  item.  He  knows  the 
names  of  Adam's  daughters  as  well  as  of  his  sons,  gives  Abra- 
ham's dying  address,  and  a  legend  about  his  boyhood.  He 
even  goes  so  far  as  to  justify  those  actions  of  the  Patriarchs 

3  Vincent,  J.  M.,  Historical  Research   (N.  Y.,  1911),  p.  iii. 
*  Biblical  Antiquities  of  Philo,  translated  from  the  Latin  by  M.  R.  James, 
London,  1917. 


HEBREW  LITERARY  METHODS  9 

which  the  earlier  narrative  condemns.  The  slaughter  of  the 
men  of  Shechem  now  appears  as  a  praiseworthy  act,  ordained 
in  heaven,  and  it  is  made  the  occasion  for  enforcing  the 
strictest  prohibition  of  intermarriage  with  gentiles.  The  book 
in  fact  traces  Levi's  claim  to  the  priesthood  to  his  zeal  in 
this  matter,  thus  antedating  a  Mosaic  ordinance.  Pure  Judaism 
is  further  favored  by  the  statement  that  the  two  highest 
classes  of  angels  were  created  circumcised.  The  Sabbath  was 
observed  by  the  Creator  —  so  much  we  learn  from  the  earlier 
narrative;  but  Jubilees  makes  the  more  definite  declaration: 
"He  gave  us  (the  angels)  the  Sabbath  as  a  sign  that  we  should 
labor  six  days  and  rest  from  all  labor  on  the  seventh;  and  He 
enjoined  upon  all  the  angels  of  the  Presence  and  all  the  angels 
of  sanctity  that  they  should  observe  the  Sabbath  with  Him, 
both  in  heaven  and  on  the  earth."  The  post-exilic  Jewish 
interest  in  the  observance  of  the  Law  comes  out  in  the  recon- 
struction of  the  lives  of  the  Patriarchs.  Since  the  author 
cannot  think  these  fathers  of  the  race  less  pious  than  their 
descendants  he  carries  the  Mosaic  ordinances  back  into  the 
earlier  time.  Noah  observes  Pentecost;  Abraham  keeps  both 
this  feast  and  Tabernacles ;  the  Day  of  Atonement  is  known  to 
the  sons  of  Jacob.  Most  significant  is  the  introduction  of  the 
evil  spirit  Mastema  to  relieve  God  of  responsibility  when  Abra- 
ham's faith  is  to  be  put  to  the  test.  The  evil  one,  we  read, 
came  before  God  and  said:  "Abraham  loves  his  son  Isaac  and 
delights  in  him  above  all  things;  command  him  to  offer  him 
as  a  burnt-offering  and  thou  wilt  see  whether  he  will  carry  out 
thy  command."  The  tendency  is  the  same  which  induced  the 
author  of  Chronicles  to  make  Satan  incite  David  to  sin,  instead 
of  attributing  the  temptation  to  the  God  of  Israel.^ 

Other  examples  might  easily  be  found  to  show  the  Hebrew 
method  even  down  to  the  Christian  era.  Note  also  that  the 
authors  of  this  period  do  not  hesitate  to  attribute  their  writ- 
ings to  ancient  worthies.    Thus  the  book  of  Enoch  claims  to 

5  The  Book  of  Jubilees,  translated  from  the  Ethiopic  text  by  R.  H.  Charles, 
London,  1917.  Although  the  complete  book  is  preserved  only  in  Ethiopic  there 
is  no  doubt  that  it  was  originally  written  in  Hebrew. 


lo    ESSjrS  IN  BIBLICAL  INTERPRETATION 

have  an  antediluvian  patriarch  as  its  author,  and  the  book  of 
Jubilees  claims  to  have  been  revealed  to  Moses  by  an  angel. 
Our  judgment  of  the  writers  may  easily  be  too  severe.  The 
underlying  motive  was  sincerely  religious.  This  is  true  both 
of  the  post-biblical  writings  and  of  the  Biblical  books  them- 
selves. Interest  in  history  as  history  was  unknown.  The  aim 
was  to  edify  the  reader.  But  the  religious  motive  has  two 
sides.  For  one  thing,  it  seeks  its  justification  in  the  past,  and 
on  this  side  it  is  conservative.  But  on  the  other  hand  religion 
cannot  exempt  itself  from  the  law  of  change.  Perhaps  it  would 
be  more  exact  to  say  that  the  forms  of  thought  with  which 
religion  associates  itself  change  from  generation  to  generation. 
Abraham  was  a  sincere  worshipper  of  God.  But  the  idea  which 
he  had  of  God  was  certainly  different  from  that  of  a  twen- 
tieth century  Christian  or  Jew.  The  religious  teacher  has  a 
double  task;  he  wishes  to  preserve  the  monuments  in  Vv^hich 
religion  has  expressed  itself  in  the  past,  and  at  the  same  time 
to  make  them  teach  lessons  appropriate  to  the  present.  The 
Chronicler,  to  whom  we  may  return  for  a  moment,  is  an  illus- 
tration. He  wished  to  preserve  the  history  of  his  nation  be- 
cause it  was  the  nation  favored  by  God.  The  part  favored  by 
God,  however,  was  Judah  alone.  He  therefore  preserved  the 
earlier  narrative  so  far  as  it  related  the  story  of  Judah,  but 
left  out  all  that  concerned  the  northern  kingdom  alone.  At  the 
same  time  he  found  the  history  defective  in  that  it  did  not 
bring  out  more  clearly  the  matter  which  was  to  him  of  prime 
importance.  This  was  the  temple  and  its  services.  The  most 
significant  of  the  insertions  which  he  makes  in  the  narrative 
are  those  which  tell  of  the  Levites.  In  contrast  with  the  book 
of  Kings  he  emphasizes  the  presence  of  this  guild  at  the  re- 
moval of  the  Ark.  He  describes  at  length  their  complicated 
organization,  and  ascribes  it  to  David  —  something  of  which 
the  earlier  narrative  is  ignorant.  He  makes  Jehoshaphat  send 
them  out  as  teachers  of  the  Law,  and  they  even  furnish  the 
army  of  the  priest  Jehoiada  when  he  secures  the  coronation  of 
the  young  king  Jehoash  and  the  death  of  Athaliah  —  in  this 
case  in  flat  contradiction  to  the  earlier  narrative. 


HEBREW  LITERART  METHODS  ii 

The  Chronicler  is  adduced  here  not  because  he  was  an  ex- 
ception to  the  rule,  but  because  he  illustrates  a  tendency  which 
we  can  trace  in  almost,  if  not  quite  all,  the  historical  books, 
We  have  already  seen  that  the  author  of  Judges  has  his  own  re- 
ligious thesis  to  establish,  and  that  he  did  it  by  using  earlier 
material  which  came  to  his  hand.  In  some  cases  it  is  plain 
that  a  story  has  been  rewritten  to  correct  what  the  author 
regards  as  an  erroneous  view.  Thus  in  the  books  of  Samuel 
we  have  two  accounts  of  the  coronation  of  Saul.  In  one  we 
read  that  the  king  was  a  gift  of  God's  grace  for  the  deliverance 
of  the  people  (I  Sam.  ix  and  x).  But  another  writer  judged 
that  this  could  not  be,  since  Saul  turned  out  to  be  a  failure. 
He  therefore  wrote  another  account  and  represented  the 
demand  for  a  king  as  evidence  of  the  incurable  waywardness 
of  the  people  (I  Sam.  viii  and  xii).  Any  one  who  will  com- 
pare the  two  sections  will  convince  himself  that  they  cannot 
come  from  the  same  hand.  And  if  it  be  said  that,  if  the  con- 
tradiction in  point  of  view  is  as  clear  as  it  seems  to  us,  an 
editor  would  not  have  combined  the  stories,  we  reply  that  this 
is  where  religious  conservatism  comes  in.  A  devout  man  who 
possessed  both  documents  could  not  bring  himself  to  let  either 
one  be  lost  and  therefore  combined  them.  Probably  if  he 
reflected  on  the  discrepancies  he  was  able  to  satisfy  himself 
with  harmonistic  h3^otheses  such  as  commentators  delight  in 
to  the  present  day. 

Another  example  would  seem  to  be  even  more  convincing, 
were  it  not  for  the  spell  laid  upon  us  by  traditional  views. 
This  is  the  story  of  the  creation.  We  can  hardly  doubt  that 
an  early  writer  began  his  story  with  the  statement:  "In  the 
day  that  Yahweh  made  earth  and  heaven  no  plant  of  the  field 
was  yet  in  the  earth,  and  no  herb  of  the  field  had  yet  sprung 
up,  for  Yahweh  had  not  caused  it  to  rain  on  the  earth,  and 
there  was  no  man  to  till  the  ground"  (Gen.  ii:4b,  5).  He 
then  went  on  with  the  delightful  account  of  the  Garden.  To 
him  there  was  nothing  unworthy  of  the  divinity  in  supposing 
Him  to  plant  a  garden,  to  mold  man  of  clay,  to  experiment  with 
the  animals  before  discovering  the  right  companion  for  man, 


12    ESSAYS  IN  BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

to  walk  in  His  garden  in  the  cool  of  evening,  to  cross-question 
the  man  to  find  out  what  he  had  done,  and  to  be  jealous  of  the 
man's  becoming  "like  God"  in  knowing  good  and  evil.  But 
in  later  times  this  anthropomorphic  God  was  not  appreciated, 
and  the  work  of  creation  had  to  be  represented  differently. 
For  this  reason  we  have  the  account  which  we  now  read  in 
the  first  chapter  of  the  Bible.  According  to  this  the  divine 
fiat  is  enough  to  bring  the  light  into  being,  to  separate  land 
and  water,  to  make  the  land  produce  plants,  and  the  sea  bring 
forth  its  swarming  inhabitants.  It  is  altogether  probable  that 
the  writer  of  this  cosmogony  would  have  been  willing  to  see 
his  account  displace  the  other.  But  again  religious  conserva- 
tism, for  which  we  cannot  be  too  grateful,  refused  to  let  either 
one  perish,  and  combined  them  in  the  form  in  which  they  have 
been  read  for  more  than  two  thousand  years. 

It  is  not  the  purpose  of  the  present  essay  to  trace  this  process 
through  the  Old  Testament.  The  delicate  work  of  analysis 
has,  however,  been  done  by  many  scholars,  and  although  they 
differ  in  detail,  the  results  are  in  their  main  lines  well  estab- 
lished. What  is  of  present  interest  to  us  is  that  the  Old  Testa- 
ment literature  was  up  to  a  certain  point  of  time  in  a  fluid 
state.  Editors  and  copyists  did  not  hesitate  to  supplement 
and  revise  their  text  in  order  to  suit  it  to  the  time  in  which 
they  lived.  But  there  did  come  a  date  when  this  rewriting  of 
ancient  material  and  compilation  from  the  various  elements 
stopped.  Apparently  it  was  only  after  the  fall  of  Jerusalem 
in  the  first  century  of  our  era  that  the  scribes  awoke  to  the 
danger  of  having  the  sacred  volumes  treated  in  the  old  irrespon- 
sible way.  The  Canon  was  then  closed;  that  is,  the  collection 
of  books  was  set  apart  as  something  sacred,  which  could  not  be 
increased  or  diminished^'  To  prevent  contamination,  rules 
were  drawn  up  for  the  copyists  so  that  at  least  the  copies 
officially  authorized  for  use  in  the  public  service  should  con- 
tain the  text  handed  down  by  the  fathers.  But  although  the 
conservative  tendency  seemed  thus  to  triumph,  religious  ideas 
continued  to  change  under  the  influence  of  the  spirit  of  the 
age.    How  then  could  the  ancient  document  continue  to  edify 


HEBREW  LITERART  METHODS  13 

^  the  new  generation?  The  answer  is  given  by  the  commentaries. 
The  text  of  the  Book  is  sacrosanct.  It  must  be  handed  on  in 
the^form  which  it  has  assumed.  But  it  can  be  explained  in  a 
new  sense  so  as  to^t  the Jdeas„of.a_  new  time.  The  history  of 
interpretation  shows  the  interplay  of  the  two  forces  which 
wrought  in  the  compilation  of  the  books.  Conservatism  at- 
tempts to  hold  onto  the  tradition  embodied  in  the  text,  and 
progressive  thought  endeavors  to  read  new  meanings  into  the  _ 
old  words.  The  process  had  already  begun  in  the  Biblical 
period,  for  the  Chronicler  refers  to  the  Midrash  of  the  book  of 
Kings.  But  Midrash,  as  we  shall  see,  was  the  technical  term 
for  a  commentary.  To  give  some  illustrations  of  the  method 
in  which  the  commentators  have  done  their  work  is  the  pur- 
pose of  these  essays. 

The  »esult  of  our  study  will  undoubtedly  be  to  show  that 
many  attempts  to  explain  the  sense  of  an  old  Testament  pass- 
age have  really  explained  it  away;  and  we  may  be  tempted  to 

Taccept  the  statement  sometimes  made  that  the  Church  has 
'  never  really  understood  its  Bible.  In  this  sweeping  form  the 
declaration  goes  too  far.  Since  the  interest  of  Jewish  and 
Christian  scholars  has  not  been  primarily  in  history,  in  the 
sense  in  which  we  understand  the  word,  it  is  not  surprising 
that  they  have  not  taken  our  point  of  view.  Their  interest 
has  been  in  religion,  and  religion  has  a  permanent  element 
which  is  above  the  considerations  of  time  and  space  on  which 
the  historian  dwells.  The  twenty-third  Psalm  appeals  directly 
to  the  devout  soul,  and  whether  it  was  written  by  David  in 
the  tenth  century  B.  C,  or  by  an  unknown  believer  in  the 
fifth,  is  a  matter  of  subordinate  importance.  A  large  part  of 
the  Old  Testament  appeals  directly  to  the  religious  sense  in 
this  way,  and  it  is  this  part  which  gives  the  Book  its  hold  on 
Christians  down  to  the  present  time.  But  it  remains  true 
that  the  historic  process  by  which  the  great  movement  which 
we  know  as  Judaism  came  to  be  what  it  was  in  itself,  and 
what  it  was  as  a  preparation  for  Christianity,  has  been  clearly 
apprehended  only  in  recent  times. 


II 

LEGALISTIC    INTERPRETATION 

A  S  EARLY  as  the  Maccabean  period  there  existed 
/-\  among  the  Jews  a  party  called  the  Asideans,  or  in  the 
y  \^  Hebrew  form  Hasidim,  the  Pious.  Their  principle 
was  to  obey  the  Law  at  all  costs,  but  not  to  meddle  with 
political  affairs.  Under  great  provocation  indeed,  when  their 
religion  was  threatened,  they  took  up  arms.  But  as  soon  as 
they  were  allowed  the  free  exercise  of  their  customs  they  with- 
drew from  the  conflict,  thus  separating  themselves  from  the 
nationalists  who  fought  for  the  independence  of  their  coun- 
try. Their  belief  was  that  in  His  own  good  time  their  God 
would  introduce  His  rule  on  earth.  Until  then  the  faithful 
had  only  to  obey  His  will  as  laid  down  in  the  Law.  The 
party  which  we  know  as  Pharisees  agreed  with  them  in  ob- 
servance of  the  Law  and  for  the  most  part  in  submission 
(though  with  no  good  will)  to  the  gentile  power. 

The  fall  of  Jerusalem  in  the  year  70,  and  the  failure  of  the 
desperate  effort  made  in  the  next  century  under  Bar  Kochba, 
convinced  the  remnant  of  the  people  that  the  Asidean  prin- 
ciple was  right.  Henceforth  the  energies  of  the  Jew  were 
directed  to  the  observance  of  the  Law.  No  doubt  the  motive 
was  the  belief,  expressed  in  fact  by  some  of  their  authorities, 
that  if  the  Law  were  perfectly  observed  for  a  single  day  the 
Messiah  would  come.  It  is  to  be  remembered  also  that  the 
Law  was  the  only  thing  to  which  the  patriotism  of  the  Jew 
could  rally.  His  temple  was  destroyed  and  access  even  to  its 
site  was  denied  him;  his  sacred  city  was  in  the  hands  of 
strangers;  his  land  was  no  longer  his;  the  nation  was  scat- 
tered to  all  parts  of  the  known  world.  One  thing  was  com- 
mon to  all  who  remained  loyal  —  the  sacred  Book.    And  in 

14 


LEGALISTIC  INTERPRETATION  15 

this  Book  the  fundamental  part  was  the  Pentateuch,  the  Tora 
given  to  Moses  at  Mount  Sinai.  Its  own  claim  is  that  it  is 
the  final  and  perfect  direction  for  those  who  would  live 
so  as  to  obtain  the  favor  of  God.  The  other  books  of  the 
Hebrew  Bible  were  valued  indeed,  but  they  were  looked  upon 
as  commentaries  on  the  Law,  rather  than  as  co-ordinate  sources 
for  the  religion  of  Israel. 

An  elaborate  Law  (613  precepts  are  contained  in  the  Penta- 
teuch according  to  rabbinical  computation)  needs  study  and 
interpretation,  all  the  more  when,  as  in  this  case,  it  is  in  a 
language  no  longer  commonly  spoken  by  the  people.  The 
synagogue,  which  was  a  well-established  institution  in  New 
Testament  times,  was  organized  to  give  the  people  instruction 
in  the  meaning  of  the  Code,  for  obedience  to  the  Code  in  every 
detail  was  obligatory  on  every  Israelite  as  soon  as  he  reached 
years  of  discretion.  Even  as  early  as  the  time  of  Nehemiah, 
we  are  told  that  when  the  Law  was  read  in  the  public  assembly, 
the  Levites  caused  the  people  to  understand  the  sense.  The 
testimony  is  good  at  least  for  the  time  of  the  Chronicler  to 
whom  we  owe  the  notice  (Neh.  viiiiyf.),  that  is  for  the  third 
century  B.C.  Whether  at  so  early  a  date  translation  of  the 
Hebrew  text  into  Aramaic  was  customary  we  do  not  know. 
Aramaic  was  the  language  of  common  life  to  the  Jews  in 
Asia  as  Greek  was  to  those  in  Egypt.  In  Egypt  the  Jews  had 
a  translation  of  their  sacred  Book  into  Greek  certainly  as  early 
as  150  B.C.,  and  it  would  not  be  strange  if  the  Aramaic-speaking 
section  of  the  nation  had  their  need  met  in  a  similar  way.  The 
tradition  is  that  at  a  later  time  translators  were  appointed  for 
the  synagogue  and  that  when  a  small  section  of  the  Hebrew 
text  was  read,  from  one  to  three  verses,  the  translator  gave 
the  sense  in  Aramaic.  A  prejudice  existed  against  writing 
down  these  versions,  so  that  in  their  earliest  form  they  are 
not  preserved  to  us.  But  after  a  time  the  Targums,  as  they 
are  called,  were  put  into  v/ritten  form.  Their  value  for  our 
present  purpose  is  the  testimony  they  give  to  the  law  of 
religious  change  working  on  a  fixed  text.  They  are  in  fact  the 
earliest  commentaries.     Even   the  one  which  adheres  most 


i6    ESSJrS  IN  BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

closely  to  the  original,  that  of  Onkelos,  does  not  hesitate  to 
read  the  ideas  of  its  own  time  into  the  text.  It  avoids  anthro- 
pomorphisms, softens  expressions  which  in  the  view  of  the 
translator  give  an  unworthy  idea  of  the  Patriarchs,  and  intro- 
duces matter  not  thought  of  by  the  sacred  writer.  For  example, 
it  refuses  to  allow  that  man  by  his  disobedience  became  "like 
one  of  us"  (divine  beings,  that  is),  and  only  declares  that  man 
has  become  a  being  unique  in  kind  in  that  he  knows  good  and 
evil.  According  to  the  Hebrew  text  Abraham  says  on  one 
occasion:  "When  God  made  me  wander  from  the  house  of  my 
father."  The  Targum  expands:  "When  the  people  went  astray 
after  the  works  of  their  hands,  and  the  Lord  brought  me  near 
to  Him  from  the  house  of  my  father."  Evidently  the  translator 
has  in  mind  the  tradition  known  to  us  later  in  its  fuller  form, 
and  which  has  passed  over  to  the  Muslims.  According  to 
this  story  Abraham  was  obliged  to  flee  from  Mesopotamia  be- 
cause his  family  were  idolaters.  Where  the  Hebrew  Law 
gives  the  prohibition,  somewhat  difficult  for  us  to  understand, 
against  boiling  a  kid  in  its  mother's  milk,  the  Targum  replaces 
it  by  the  traditional  formula:  "Thou  shalt  not  eat  flesh  and 
milk  together." 

The  other  Targums  are  much  more  free  in  their  treatment  of 
the  text.  A  single  example  must  suffice.  In  the  Song  of 
Deborah  we  have  the  verses  rendered  in  our  version:  "They 
chose  new  gods;  then  was  there  war  in  the  gates:  was  there 
shield  or  spear  seen  among  forty  thousand  in  Israel?  My 
heart  is  towards  the  governors  of  Israel  that  offered  themselves 
willingly  among  the  people.  Bless  ye  Jehovah."  ^  The  Targum 
has  the  following:  "When  the  Sons  of  Israel  were  willing 
to  serve  new  idols  that  were  worshipped  by  their  neighbors, 
with  which  their  fathers  had  had  no  dealings,  there  came 
upon  them  the  nations  and  drove  them  from  their  cities,  but 
when  they  turned  to  the  Law  they  had  no  power  over  them, 
until  Sisera,  the  enemy  and  oppressor,  came  with  forty  thou- 
sand captains,  fifty  thousand  swordsmen,  sixty  thousand  lance- 

^  Judge  v;  8f.  Whether  the  Hebrew  text  is  sound  does  not  concern  us.  It 
was  certainly  the  text  which  the  translator  had  before  him. 


LEGALISTIC  INTERPRETATION  17 

men,  seventy  thousand  bearers  of  shields,  eighty  thousand 
archers,  besides  the  nine  hundred  chariots  of  iron  which  he 
had,  and  his  own  chariot.  All  these  thousands  and  all  these 
troops  were  not  able  to  stand  before  Barak  and  the  ten  thou- 
sand men  with  him.  Deborah  said  in  her  prophesying:  I  am 
sent  to  praise  the  scribes  of  Israel  who,  when  that  trouble  came, 
did  not  cease  from  interpreting  the  Law.  And  how  beautiful 
of  them  that  they  sit  in  the  synagogues  with  uncovered  heads, 
and  teach  the  people  the  words  of  the  Law,  blessing  and  prais- 
ing the  Lord." 

Comment  is  almost  unnecessary.  The  homiletic  aim  has 
outweighed  every  thought  of  accurate  adherence  to  the  text. 
The  fondness  for  exaggerated  numbers  which  we  have  reason 
to  suspect  led  to  some  of  the  statements  of  the  Chronicler  is 
here  distinctly  in  evidence.  The  Rabbinical  point  of  view  has 
changed  the  heroes  of  Israel  from  warlike  leaders,  who  threw 
themselves  into  the  fight  on  behalf  of  their  people,  into  scribes 
whose  virtue  consisted  in  continuing  their  work  even  in  times 
of  persecution.  Doubtless  this  sort  of  heroism  has  been  often 
enough  exemplified  in  the  long  period  of  persecution  through 
which  the  scattered  nation  has  gone,  and  we  need  not  under- 
value it.  But  that  it  is  of  a  different  sort  from  that  praised 
by  Deborah  is  clear.  The  change  in  point  of  view  between 
pre-exilic  and  post-exilic  times  is  what  interests  us  here.  But 
let  us  look  a  little  more  closely  at  the  situation. 

The  theory  of  the  final  redactor  of  the  Pentateuch  was  that 
he  had  compiled  a  complete  code  for  the  regulation  of  life  — 
for  the  Jew,  that  is;  the  gentile  did  not  concern  him.  But  a 
complete  code  of  ethics  cannot  be  put  down  in  black  and 
white.  The  exigencies  of  life  are  too  manifold,  and  changed 
conditions  must  be  met  by  new  rules,  or  new  interpretations 
of  the  old  ones.  Every  written  law  gives  rise  to  casuistry. 
Some  one  must  decide  whether  a  given  case  comes  within  the 
meaning  of  the  law.  Moreover  the  ethos  of  a  community 
contains  more  and  also  less  than  is  specified  in  the  statute. 
Along  two  lines  therefore  Jewish  anxiety  to  conform  to  the 
divinely  given  code  gave  rise  to  a  tradition  which  grew  in  bulk 


i8    ESSJrS  IN  BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

as  the  centuries  rolled  on.  The  immediate  task  was  to  define 
what  came  under  a  specific  rule.  The  Law  strenuously  for- 
bids work  on  the  Sabbath.  The  question  at  once  arises:  What 
is  work?  Is  writing  work?  Is  it  work  to  carry  a  parcel  from 
one  house  to  another?  The  earnestness  with  which  such  ques- 
tions were  discussed  led  often  to  what  we  consider  trivialities, 
but  it  attests  the  sincerity  of  the  motive.  Doubtless  the  desire 
to  display  intellectual  acuteness  led  to  the  posing  of  questions 
in  thesi,  but  that  is  inevitable  where  an  ancient  document  is 
made  the  object  of  study. 

Besides  the  necessity  of  defining  what  the  Law  requires, 
there  arose  new  conditions  not  foreseen  by  the  legislator.  The 
growth  of  law  may  be  observed  in  any  community,  and  this 
growth  often  takes  place  by  a  fictitious  assumption  that  the  new 
case  can  be  brought  under  an  already  existing  statute.  The 
exigency  laid  upon  the  Jews  was  more  exacting  than  in  the 
case  of  other  communities.  Their  legislator  was  providing  for 
a  state  of  things  which  no  longer  existed.  He  had  in  mind  a 
priestly  nation  with  its  temple  as  its  capital.  His  main  in- 
terest was  in  having  that  temple  kept  from  pollution,  and  its 
services  carried  on  without  interruption.  But  the  Jews  had 
lost  their  temple  and  their  land.  How  difficult  was  the  adjust- 
ment to  life  in  the  dispersion  may  be  illustrated  by  an  anecdote 
preserved  in  the  Talmud.  This  relates  that  after  the  destruc- 
tion of  Jerusalem  many  Jews  refused  to  eat  flesh  or  drink  wine. 
The  reason  was  that  the  flesh  could  not  be  consecrated  by  sac- 
rifice, nor  the  wine  by  libation.  In  other  words,  the  meat  and 
drink  were  unclean  —  a  point  of  view  already  expressed  in 
the  earlier  time  (Hos.  ix:3).  The  Rabbi  who  convinced  these 
men  of  their  error  did  it  by  a  reductio  ad  absurdum.  He 
showed  that  the  same  reasoning  would  apply  to  bread,  for  the 
grain  could  not  be  consecrated  by  the  offering  of  the  first 
sheaf,  and  also  to  fruits,  because  in  this  case  also  it  was  im- 
possible to  bring  the  first  fruits,  as  was  commanded.^  The 
result  would  be  suicide  by  starvation  which  was  not  only  a 
crime  in  itself,  but  which  would  result  in  the  extermination 

2  Baba  Bathra,  6ob. 


LEGALISTIC  INTERPRETATION  19 

of  the  nation,  and  of  course  the  frustration  of  all  their  hopes 
of  a  restoration. 

Compelled  to  live  in  conditions  which  the  Law  did  not  con- 
template, and  yet  constrained  by  their  religious  faith  to  hold 
fast  to  the  Law,  it  is  not  strange  that  the  people  used  all  their 
ingenuity  to  apply  the  old  rules  to  the  new  situation.  The 
belief  was  that  every  verse  of  Scripture  was  of  direct  divine 
authorship,  and  not  only  the  literal  affirmation  of  the  text  was 
binding,  but  all  that  it  logically  implied.  It  is  in  fact  difficult 
to  put  limits  to  the  meaning  of  an  inspired  Scripture.  As  a 
loyal  Jew  states  it:  There  is  no  science  and  no  knowledge 
whatever  thafls  not~contained  in  the  Tora.^  The  result  in 
lateT  speculation,  according  to  which  every  word  of  the  Law 
has  seventy  faces  or  meanings,  does  not  now  concern  us. 
Legalistic  interpretation  scanned  the  sacred  text  to  find  justi- 
fication for  customs  which  were  not  directly  commanded. 
Thirteen  rules  were  formulated  by  which  this  could  be  done. 
They  attempt  to  classify  the  various  methods  of  arguing  a 
minori  ad  ma  jus,  a  majori  ad  minus,  from  analogy,  from  the 
special  case  to  the  general  rule.*  But  one  limitation  was 
insisted  on;  no  deduction  must  conflict  with  the  established 
tradition  of  the  schools.  A  Rabbi  says:  He  who  interprets  a 
verse  of  Scripture  contrary  to  the  Halaka  has  no  part  in  the 
world  to  come. 

Halaka,  be  it  noted,  is  the  technical  term  for  a  rule  of  con- 
duct, that  by  which  one  should  walk,  regulate  his  life.  These 
rules,  the  discussions  concerning  them,  anecdotes  in  illustration 
and  other  material  more  or  less  related,  make  up  the  body  of 
tradition  called  the  Talmud.  What  is  not  directly  contained 
in  the  Pentateuch  is  called  the  Oral  Law,  and  it  is  legitimated 
by  the  theory  that  at  Sinai  Moses  received  not  only  the  written 
Code  but  the  whole  body  of  traditions  as  well.  These  were 
handed  down  through  faithful  transmitters  until  they  reached 
the  Rabbis,  who  wrote  them  down.    The  specific  assertion  is 

^  Manasseh  ben  Israel,  The  Conciliator,  p.  213. 

*  Friedlander,  Geschichtsbilder  aus  der  Zeit  der  Tannaiten  und  Amorder 
(1879),  P-  76f. 


20    ESSJrS  IN  BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

made  that  everything  that  a  Rabbi  was  to  inculcate  in  the 
future  was  contained  in  the  revelation  to  Moses,'  and  the 
reason  is  given  that  Moses  himself  declared  that  he  received 
all  the  words  that  the  Lord  had  spoken  to  him  (Deut.  ix:io). 
That  this  really  makes  the  tradition  superior  to  the  written 
Law  needs  no  demonstration,  but  this  is  a  phenomenon  that 
recurs  in  the  whole  history  of  Biblical  study.  And  on  this 
ground  we  can  understand,  if  we  cannot  wholly  justify,  the 
saying  recorded  in  another  Midrash  that  the  words  of  the  wise 
>  are  more  precious  than  the  words  of  Scripture.  The  Rabbi 
bases  his  declaration  on  the  text  'Tor  thy  love  is  better  than 
wine."  (Cant.  i:2).  The  Scripture  is  wine,  but  there  is 
something  better  and  this  must  be  the  words  of  the  teacher.® 
As  a  single  illustration  of  legalistic  treatment  let  us  take  the 
opening  of  the  Talmud.  It  begins  with  the  question:  At  what 
time  does  one  recite  the  Shema  of  evening?  The  question 
assumes  that  it  is  the  duty  of  every  loyal  Israelite  to  recite  the 
profession  of  faith,  known  from  its  opening  word  as  the 
Shema,  and  that  this  should  be  done  morning  and  evening. 
The  text  is  the  familiar  verse  in  Deuteronomy:  "Hear  {Shema) 
O  Israel;  the  Lord  our  God  is  one  Lord.  And  thou  shalt  love 
the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul 
and  with  all  thy  might.  And  these  words  which  I  command 
thee  shall  be  in  thy  heart,  and  thou  shalt  teach  them  diligently 
to  thy  children,  and  shalt  talk  of  them  when  thou  sittest  in  thy 
house,  and  when  thou  walkest  by  the  way,  and  when  thou 
liest  down  and  when  thou  risest  up."  ^  The  Biblical  author  in 
his  rhetorical  way,  is  urging  his  readers  or  hearers  to  keep 
constantly  in  mind  the  exhortations  and  commands  contained 
in  his  book.  There  is  no  indication  that  he  expects  these  par- 
ticular verses  to  be  singled  out  for  daily  recitation.  To  inter- 
pret the  paragraph  as  a  law  is  to  put  more  upon  it  than 
it  was  intended  to  bear  —  and  also  less,  for  it  is  conceivable 

^  Midrasck  Koheleth  (in  Bibliotheca  Rabbinica,  1880),  p.  18. 
®  Midrasch  Schir-ha-Schirim   {Ibid.),  p.  18. 

'^  Deut.  vi:  4-7.     I  have  translated  according  to  the  Jewish  understanding, 
and  have  not  thought  it  necessary  to  give  the  complete  text  of  the  formula. 


LEGALISTIC  INTERPRETATION  21 

that  the  recitation  of  the  formula  might  become  a  mere  exer- 
cise of  the  memory,  satisfying  the  conscience  as  an  opus  opera- 
tum,  and  interfering  with  the  whole-souled  devotion  to  the 
Law  which  the  author  was  endeavoring  to  secure.  It  is  easy 
to  say  of  course  that  the  danger  of  formalism  is  not  confined 
to  any  one  religion,  and  that  the  Jews  are  not  sinners  above 
others  in  this  respect.  We  are  not  bringing  an  accusation,  but 
making  an  historical  study,  and  the  example  is  cited  simply 
to  show  how  a  particular  command  is  derived  from  a  particular 
text. 

The  sequel  shows  what  is  meant  by  casuistry,  for  the  obliga- 
tion to  recite  the  formula  being  recognized,  it  is  necessary  to 
define  what  is  meant  by  morning  and  evening.  How  late  does 
the  duty  last,  and  how  early  does  it  begin?  Rabbi  Gamaliel's 
sons  were  at  a  banquet  which  kept  them  to  the  small  hours. 
On  coming  home  they  asked  whether  it  was  too  late  to  recite 
the  evening  Shema.  His  reply  was:  If  the  dawn  does  not  yet 
show  itself  you  are  under  obligation.  Similarly,  a  decision  on 
the  morning  hour  is  given;  Morning  begins  as  soon  as  one  is 
able  to  distinguish  a  white  thread  from  a  colored  one.  The 
subsequent  discussion  turns  on  the  words  of  the  Biblical  text: 
When  thou  liest  down  and  when  thou  risest  up.  Since  kings 
and  wealthy  men  sleep  late,  the  time  for  the  morning  exercise 
is  extended  to  the  third  hour  of  the  day. 

This  simple  example  illustrates  what  the  Rabbis  mean  by 
putting  a  hedge  about  the  Law.  It  was  their  duty,  as  they 
conceived  it,  to  provide  for  all  possible  cases,  and  prevent  the 
least  infringement  of  the  command.  Much  more  elaborate 
examples  might  be  cited.  Especially  where  there  was  the 
slightest  risk  of  defilement  by  contact  with  gentiles  and  gentile 
objects  of  worship,  or  with  the  things  classed  as  abominations, 
all  conceivable  exigencies  were  considered.  This  is  undoubt- 
edly in  line  with  the  intention  of  the  Law,  for  a  large  part  of 
the  Pentateuch  is  devoted  to  the  subject  of  ritual  defilement. 
According  to  the  early  distinction  between  sacred  and  profane, 
contamination  of  the  two  spheres  must  be  prevented.  The 
sacred  building,  the  sacred  persons,  the  sacred  implements, 


^-' 


22    ESSJrS  IN  BIBLICAL  INTERPRETATION 

and  the  sacred  community,  must  be  protected.  Since  the 
world,  especially  the  gentile  world  in  which  the  Jews  now 
live,  is  full  of  objects  which,  being  in  no  connection  with 
the  God  of  Israel,  are  counted  as  profane,  the  number  of 
problems  with  which  the  faithful  Jew  is  confronted  may  be 
imagined.  While  the  Talmud  faithfully  adopts  the  Penta- 
teuchal  point  of  view,  it  goes  more  into  detail.  It  classifies 
the  objects  which  are  to  be  avoided,  and  defines  the  degree  of 
uncleanness  that  adheres  to  each.  Some  are  not  only  taboo 
in  themselves  but  the  source  of  taboo  in  others,  while  some 
only  contract  uncleanness.  It  is  not  necessary  to  give  ex- 
amples, as  we  are  concerned  with  the  method  of  Biblical 
interpretation  which  in  this  matter  offers  few  peculiarities. 

As  has  been  said,  the  Halaka  deals  with  practical  exigen- 
cies, defining  the  rules  by  which  the  faithful  Jew  must  live. 
But  legalism  could  not  absorb  all  the  energies  of  the  race. 
The  synagogue  was  primarily  a  school  of  ethics,  but  it  was 
also  a  place  of  worship  and  a  social  centre.  The  public 
speaker  must  interest  and  entertain  as  well  as  instruct.  Hence 
there  arose  a  literature  which  is  not  directly  legalistic  or 
casuistic.  This  is  called  Haggada,  and  the  documents  in 
which  it  is  embodied  bears  the  name  Midrash.  The  name 
itself  testifies  to  the  claim  that  the  material  is  derived  from 
the  Scripture,  for  the  verbal  root  from  which  the  noun  is 
derived  means  to  search  out,  and  it  is  applied  specifically  to 
searching  the  Scriptures  for  their'  hidden  meaning.;  The 
Talmud  contains  both  Halaka  and  Haggada,  but  the  books 
which  are  entitled  Midrash  consist  almost  entirely  of  Hag- 
gada. The  material  is  really  homiletic,  and  represents  the 
method  of  the  preacher  who  ostensibly  bases  his  sermon  on 
a  text,  but  often  enough  departs  far  from  his  starting  point. 
Here  we  see  the  play  of  fancy,  willing  to  draw  the  attention 
by  far-fetched  or  paradoxical  deductions. 

Allegory,  to  which  the  next  essay  is  devoted,  comes  into 
play  in  the  endeavor  thus  to  edify  the  hearer,  and  in  its  fully 
developed  form  will  be  discussed  later.  But  the  premise  from 
which  it  starts,  namely  that  there  must  be  more  in  the  text 


LEGALISTIC  INTERPRETATION  23 

than  appears  on  the  surface,  is  exemplified  in  almost  every 
chapterjof  the  Midrash.  For  example,  when  Jacob  is  said 
to  pray  for  bread  to  eat  and  clothing  to  wear,  the  religiously 
minded  reader  feels  that  the  ancestor  of  the  chosen  people 
could  not  be  thinking  of  mere  material  things.  He  must  have 
meant  the  Tora  (spiritual  nourishment)  and  the  sacred 
Prayer-shawl  (the  tallith).  Since  in  a  divinely  given  book 
there  can  be  nothing  superfluous  or  accidental,  any  deviation 
from  the  ordinarv  must  have  meaning.  The  word  translated 
and  He  formed  (nii5''''1  Gen.  ii:  7),  is  written,  contrary  to 
analogy,  with  two  yodhs;  this  points  to  the  fact  that  man  is 
composed  of  two  elements,  earthly  and  heavenly.  Eccle- 
siastes  (ix:i4)  writes  of  a  little  city  with  few  men  in  it.  He 
means  the  world  of  Noah's  time;  the  great  king  who  besieges 
it  is  God,  the  poor  wise  man  who  delivers  it  is  Noah.  The 
four  streams  of  Eden  represent  the  four  world  empires.  Ja- 
cob's meeting  with  the  shepherds  is  thus  expounded:  The 
well  in  the  field  is  Zion;  the  three  flocks  are  the  three  sacred 
festivals;  the  great  stone  is  the  joy  in  the  temple  when  the 
water  is  drawn  for  the  feast  of  Tabernacles.  The  ground  for 
such  expositions  (if  we  concede  that  name  to  them)  is  par- 
allelism of  a  sort,  though  to  our  apprehension  remote.  The 
number  jour  of  one  passage  is  brought  into  connection  with 
the  same  number  in  the  other,  and  play  with  numbers  is 
alvyays  attractive  to  the  imaginative  mystic.  So  in  the  second 
case  just  cited  the  number  three  gives  the  clue.  Similarly  the 
three  branches  of  the  vine  which  Pharoah's  butler  saw  in  his 
dream  allude  to  the  three  characters  prominent  in  the  story 
of  the  exodus  —  Moses,  Aaron,  and  Miriam.  The  vine  there- 
fore typifies  Israel.  This  identification  is  doubtless  fortified 
by  the  figure  of  the  vine  applied  to  Israel  in  Psalm  Ixxx.  More 
remote,  and  to  our  taste,  grotesque,  is  the  assertion  that  the 
'little  sister'  of  Canticles  (viii:  8)  means  Abraham. 

The  play  on  numbers  is  facilitated  by  thp  fart  ihai-thp; 
letter^jof  the  Hebrew  alphabet  were  used  as  numerals,  as 
was  the  case  also  with  the  Greek.  What  welcome  aid  this 
afforded- this  ChrtstiaiTT^athers  we  shall  see  later.    Among  the 


24    ESS/irS  IN  BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

Hebrews  a  whole  science  or  pseudo-science  is  based  on  the 
numerical  value  of- the  letters*  The  rfunTeirical^vaTue  of "tEe 
letters  in  the  name  of  Shem  amounts  to  340,  the  years  from 
the  deluge'  to  the  confusion  of  tongues.  The  theory  is  that 
the  correspondence  cannot  be  accidental.  The  account  of 
the  creation  begins  with  the  second  letter  of  the  alphabet 
whereas  we  might  have  expected  the  first  letter  (aleph)  to 
stand  at  the  beginning.  The  reason  is  that  two  worlds  were 
created  instead  of  one,  either  the  earthly  and  heavenly,  or 
the  two  aeons,  the  present  and  the  one  to  come.  Or  as  an 
alternative  we  may  suppose  that  there  is  an  allusion  to  the 
two  Laws  written  and  oral.  In  fact  the  number  of  hypoth- 
eses of  this  kind  has  no  limit.  This  same  letter  opens  the 
account  of  the  creation,  because  it  is,  in  Hebrew  as  in  Eng- 
lish, the  initial  of  the  word  Blessing,  whereas  aleph  is  the 
initial  of  the  word  meaning  cursed.  An  apparently  super- 
fluous H  in  the  word  meaning  created  is  an  indication  that 
the  world  was  created  for  the  sake  of  Abraham.  The  anagram 
is  taken  seriously  (QSlDHD  =  Dm^KD)-  ^^  Genesis  i:  24 
we  read  that  the  earth  is  to  bring  forth  living  beings,  cattle, 
reptiles  and  beasts  of  the  earth  —  four  kinds.  But  the  next 
verse,  which  relates  the  carrying  out  of  the  command  men- 
tions only  three.  The  reason  is  (according  to  the  Midrash) 
that  the  fourth  kind  is  the  demons.  God  had  got  so  far  as 
to  create  their  souls  and  was  about  to  give  them  bodies  when 
the  Sabbath  intervened  and  they  were  left  disembodied 
spirits. 

Further  examples  of  this  play  with  numbers  are  easily 
found.  The  seven  lambs  of  Abraham's  covenant  (Gen.  xxi: 
28)  represent  either  seven  generations  of  Abraham's  descend- 
ants, or  the  seven  Israelites  slain  by  the  Philistines,  or  again 
the  seven  sanctuaries  mentioned  in  Scripture,  or  finally  the 
seven  months  that  the  Ark  was  in  the  land  of  the  Philistines. 
The  only  reason  for  grouping  these  incongruous  data  together 
is  the  recurrence  of  the  number  seven.  The  127  years  of 
Sarah's  life  correspond  to  the  127  provinces  ruled  over  by 
Esther.     From  David's  sixfold  lament  over  his  son  Absalom 


LEGALISTIC  INTERPRETATION  25 

the  Targum  concludes  that  the  unhappy  young  men  went 
through  the  seven  gates  that  lead  to  the  lowest  hell.  The 
first  word  of  the  Bible  consists  of  six  letters.  What  better 
reason  can  be  found  than  that  it  contains  a  hidden  allusion 
to  the  six  classes  of  beings  that  were  to  be  created?  By  ana- 
gram this  same  word  can  be  made  to  read  "on  the  first  of 
(the  month)  Tishri."  This  proves  that  this,  the  Jewish  New 
Year,  is  the  birthday  of  the  world.  A  word  in  the  account  of 
Jacob's  dream  (Gen.  xxviiiiiy),  the  sum  of  whose  letters  is 
eighteen,  tells  us  of  the  distance  between  earth  and  sky.** 
In  Genesis  xiv  we  read  that  Abraham  armed  318  servants 
born  in  his  house.  But  elsewhere  we  read  that  his  house- 
born  servant  was  Eliezer.  Curiously  enough  the  letters  of 
Eliezer's  name  sum  up  to  318.  The  inference  is  that  Abra- 
ham's army  consisted  of  this  one  man.  Whether  in  fact  the 
writer  of  Genesis  xiv  had  this  equation  in  mind  we  need  not 
stop  to  inquire;  our  business  is  with  the  haggadic  exegesis. 
By  the  same  method  every  letter  of  Isaac's  name  is  signifi- 
cant because  of  its  numerical  value.  The  first  means  ten  — 
the  ten  commandments;  the  second,  ninety,  gives  the  age  of 
Sarah  at  the  boy's  birth;  the  third,  eight,  alludes  to  the  eighth 
day  on  which  he  was  circumcised,  and  the  last  letter  has  the 
value  of  Abraham's  age  at  the  time.  Doubtless  it  would  be 
a  mistake  to  give  much  weight  to  material  of  this  kind.  The 
Bible  was  the  student's  textbook  and  every  correspondence 
that  could  be  pointed  out  not  only  stimulated  interest  but 
aided  the  memory.  Theologically  it  might  be  well  to  notice 
that  an  apparently  superfluous  waw  in  Gen.  ii:4,  had  the 
value  of  six,  and  this  was  the  precise  number  of  things  which 
Adam  lost  by  his  fall,  but  which  will  be  restored  to  him  in 
the  coming  age.^  They  are:  his  glory  (Judg  v:  31),  his  hfe 
(Is.  lxv:2  2),  his  stature  (Lev.  xxvi:i3),  the  fruits  of  the  earth, 
the  fruit  of  the  tree  of  life  (Zech.  viii:i2),  and  the  luminaries 
(Is.  xxx:26). 

The  literal  or  historical  sense  is  lost  out  of  sight  when  the 
text  is  treated  in  tliis^  way.     The  theory  of  direct  divine 

'^  Bereschith  Rabba  {Bibliotheca  Rabbinka),  p.  336.  ~     ^  Ibid.,  p.  53. 


26    ESSJrS  IN  BIBLICAL  INTERPRETATION 

authorship  seemed  to  authorize  the  student  to  take  each 
sentence  by  itself  as.  an  oracle.  That  the  Jews  were 
not  sinners  above  other  men  in  this  atomizing  treatment 
of  the  sacred  Book  we  shall  have  occasion  to  notice. 
What  results  from  taking  each  sentence  or  each  frag- 
ment as  an  oracle  is  to  make  every  sort  of  deduction 
legkimaXe.  In  Job  we  read  of  the  mountain  falling  and 
the  rock  removed  from  its  place  (Ch.  xiv:i8).  The  falling 
mountain  is  Lot  whose  disastrous  experiences  account  for  the 
adjective,  whereas  the  rock  removed  from  its  place  is  Abra- 
ham who  removed  from  his  native  land.  The  identification 
is  helped  by  the  fact  that  in  one  passage  Abraham  is  referred 
to  as  the  rock  whence  Israel  was  hewn  (Is.  li:i).  The  Song 
of  Songs  found  a  place  in  the  Canon  because  it  was  expounded 
allegorically.  We  are  not  surprised  therefore  to  learn  that 
the  sixty  queens  and  eighty  concubines  of  Solomon  are  not 
meant  to  tell  us  of  the  king's  harem.  The  sixty  queens  are 
Abraham  and  his  descendants  as  enumerated  in  one  of  the 
genealogies,  and  the  eighty  concubines  are  Noah  and  his 
descendants.  The  next  verse  in  this  same  chapter  says:  "My 
dove,  my  undefiled,  is  one."  This  means  Israel  who  pre- 
serves his  fidelity  to  God.  As  an  alternative  we  are  allowed 
to  suppose  that  the  dove  means  Abraham;  the  only  child  of 
her  mother  is  Isaac;  the  choice  one  of  her  that  bare  her  is 
Jacob;  the  daughters  who  saw  her,  are  the  twelve  tribes  of 
Israel;  and  she  whom  the  queens  and  concubines  praise  is 
Joseph.^" 

The  skeptical  book  of  Ecclesiastes  gave  special  opportunity 
for  this  sort  of  exegesis.  Where  the  author  recommends  an 
epicurean  philosophy:  "There  is  nothing  better  for  a  man 
than  that  he  should  eat  and  drink  and  make  himself  enjoy 
good  in  his  labor,"  the  Midrash  assures  us  that  by  eating 
and  drinking  the  Scripture  means  increase  in  learning  and 
good  works.  Where  Solomon  speaks  of  his  great  works,  his 
houses,  his  vineyards,  his  gardens,  and  his  trees,  he  means  the 
tables  of  the  Law,  the  synagogues,  the  rows  of  scholars,  the 

10  Bereschith  Rabba  (Bibliotheca  Rabbinica),  p.  439. 


LEGALISTIC  INTERPRETATION  27 

Mishna,  and  the  Gemara.  The  Biblical  author  in  his  pessi- 
mism declares  that  the  crooked  cannot  be  made  straight. 
The  Commentator  hastens  to  limit  the  dictum  to  the  present 
world,  and  actually  finds  in  the  verse  assurance  of  a  future 
life  where  all  will  be  made  straight.  The  poor  but  wise 
youth  of  iv:i3  is  identified  with  the  good  impulse  of  the 
heart." 

Since  all  Scripture  is  the  word  of  God,  there  can  be  no 
contradictions  in  it  —  an  assumption  that  underlies  the  ex- 
ggesis  of  Christians  as  well  as  Jews.  Since,  however,  there  are 
apparent  discrepancies,  the  labor  of  the  expositor  must  be 
directed  to  their  harmonization.  The  Rabbis  were  not  negli- 
gent of  this  department  of  study.  Two  large  volumes  con- 
taining their  endeavors  were  compiled  by  Manasseh  ben 
Israel  in  the  seventeenth  century,  and  are  accessible  in  an 
English  translation.  Examination  shows  that  the  discrepan- 
cies discussed  are  due  in  reality  to  the  fact,  first  brought  into 
clear  light  by  the  higher  criticism,  namely  that  two  or  more 
different  documents  are  combined  in  the  Biblical  books.  Thus 
several  of  the  instances  endeavor  to  harmonize  the  two  ac- 
counts of  creation  contained  in  the  early  chapters  of  Genesis. 
Where  one  account  dates  the  creation  of  the  plants  on  the 
third  day  and  that  of  man  on  the  sixth,  the  other  places  the 
creation  of  man  at  the  beginning  and  the  plants  are  not  made 
to  grow  until  there  is  a  man  to  take  care  of  the  garden.  The 
Rabbis  are  compelled  to  suppose  that  the  plants  were  really 
created  on  the  third  day,  but  remained  hidden  below  the  sur- 
face of  the  soil  until  man  appeared  and  prayed  for  rain.  A 
crux  was  the  verse:  "Let  us  make  man,"  since  it  was  used  by 
the  Christians  as  an  argument  for  the  Trinity.  It  was  there- 
fore explained  to  mean  that  God  took  counsel  with  the  heavens 
and  the  earth.  The  anthropomorphisms  naturally  gave 
trouble,  being  irreconcilable,  if  taken  literally,  with  the  more 
spiritual  declarations  of  Scripture  itself.  One  passage  affirms 
that  Yahweh  came  down  to  see  what  was  going  on  in  Sodom, 

11  The  examples  are  taken  from  the  Midrasch  Koheleth  in  the  Bibliotheca 
Rabbinica  translated  by  Wiinsche. 


28    ESSJrS  IN  BIBLICAL  INTERPRETATION 

whereas  Jeremiah  declares  that  He  fills  heaven  and  earth. 
Or  contrast  Yahweh's  own  statement  that  He  will  pass  over 
the  houses  of  the  Israelites  and  when  He  sees  the  Passover 
blood  on  the  doors  will  not  suffer  the  destroyer  to  enter,  with 
Daniel's  thanksgiving  that  God  knows  what  is  in  the  dark- 
ness. Of  course  it  was  easy  for  the  Rabbis,  as  it  has  been 
for  later  commentators,  to  say  that  such  expressions  were 
metaphorical,  but  the  diffuse  attempts  at  explanation  make 
us  suspect  that  this  was  not  always  found  to  be  satisfactory. 
Even  in  the  legislative  portions  of  the  Pentateuch  it  is  not 
always  possible  to  assert  that  the  statutes  are  harmonious. 
The  differences  between  Deuteronomy  and  the  Priestcode 
therefore  receive  special  attention.  In  the  historical  books 
the  oft-debated  problem  of  Saul's  ignorance  of  David,  whom 
nevertheless  he  has  had  as  his  trusty  adjutant,  strikes  the 
reader,  and  the  attempts  at  harmonizing  what  are  really  two 
accounts  are  much  like  those  we  read  in  later  apologies.  The 
ingenuity  goes  so  far  as  to  demonstrate,  at  least  to  the  satis- 
faction of  the  expositor  himself,  that  Reuben  did  not  commit 
incest,  that  the  sons  of  Eli  were  not  guilty  of  fornication,  and 
that  David  was  not  an  adulterer.^- 

These  examples  might  be  added  to  indefinitely  and  per- 
haps they  have  already  tried  the  reader's  patience.  What 
they  show  is  that  the  ostensible  explanation  of  the  sacred 
text  is  in  many  cases  only  a  way  of  reading  into  it  the  ideas 
of  the  expositor.  Some  sort  of  a  curb  to  extravagant  fancies 
was  however  found  to  be  necessary,  and  it  was  declared  that 
no  one  should  expound  Scripture  contrary  to  the  Halaka,  that 
is,  the  tradition  accepted  in  the  schools.''  That  this  made, 
tradition  and  not  Scripture  the  rule  is  of  course  clear,  but 
ought  not  to  surprise  us.  In  fact,  as  we  have  seen,  the  oral 
Law  was  quite  on  a  level  with  the  written  Word.  And  when 
this  is  realized  we  are  less  astonished  than  we  otherwise 
should  be  to  find  that  the  commentators  venture  on  occasion 

12  The  Conciliator  of  Manasseh  ben  Israel,  translated  by  E.  H.  Lindo,  Lon- 
don, 1842. 

13  This  seems  to  be  the  meaning  of  Aboth  3:  12,  repeated  in  Synedrin  99a. 


LEGALISTIC  INTERPRETATION  29 

to  change  the  reading  of  their  text.  The  unvocalized  text, 
which  was  in  the  hands  of  the  Rabbis,  invites  speculation,  for 
the  consonants  may  be  read  in  more  than  one  way.  But  even 
the  consonantal  text  was  not  exempt  from  tampering.  Thus 
the  Midrash  suggests  that  by  substituting  a  waw  for  a  yodh 
in  a  word  used  in  Psalm  xlviii:i4,  we  get  the  information  that 
God  will  lead  the  dance  of  His  people.  It  must  not  be  sup- 
posed that  the  new  reading  was  intended  to  displace  the  old. 
Both  were  accepted  and  the  theory  of  inspiration  was  broad 
enough  to  cover  both. 

In  the  great  mass  of  material  .contained  in  the  Talmud 
and  the  related  books  it  is  easy  to  pick  out  portions  that  seem 
to  us  trivial,  absurd,  or  even  immoral.  Abundant  use  has 
been  made  of  this  opportunity  by  Antisemites  to  blacken  the 
character  of  the  Jewish  community.  Attacks  upon  the  "hard- 
ened and  obstinate  Jews"  have  been  based  on  the  Talmud 
from  the  time  of  Eisenmenger  ^*  down  to  the  present  day. 
Probably  the  judgment  of  Christian  scholars  would  assent 
to  Farrar's  rhetorical  peroration: 

The  methods  radically  untenable,  the  results  all  but  absolutely  valueless, 
the  letter-worship  and  traditionalism  which  date  their  origin  from  the  days 
of  Ezra,  the  idolatry  of  the  Law,  the  exaltation  of  ceremonial,  the  quenching 
of  the  living  and  mighty  spirit  of  prophecy,  the  pedantry,  the  exclusiveness, 
the  haughty  self-exaltation  of  Rabbinism,  the  growth  of  an  extravagant  rev- 
erence for  the  oral  rules  which  form  a  hedge  about  the  Law,  are  results  in 
themselves  deplorable.  But  they  become  still  more  deplorable  when  we  see 
that  meanwhile  all  that  was  essential,  divine,  and  spiritual,  was  set  at  naught 
by  human  invention.^s 

These  are  very  bitter  words,  and  they  show  the  danger  we 
run  in  fastening  our  attention  on  one  aspect  of  the  great 
codex  we  are  studying.  We  forget  that  Biblical  exposition  is 
not  the  main  interest  of  the  Rabbis.  They  were  redactors  of 
the  traditions  of  their  people.     Their  religious  earnestness, 

1*  Entdecktes  Judentiim,  1711.  The  subtitle  claims  that  the  book  is  a 
thorough  and  truthful  account  of  the  way  in  which  the  stubborn  Jews  blas- 
pheme and  dishonor  the  Holy  Trinity,  insult  the  Holy  Mother  of  Christ,  and 
scoff  at  the  Christian  religion. 

1''  F.  W.  Farrar,  History  of  Interpretation  (Bampton  Lectures,  1886), 
p.  105. 


30    ESSATS  IN  BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

their  almost  desperate  determination  to  preserve  the  heritage 
of  the  fathers,  and  their  constant  faith  that  only  by  obedience 
to  the  oral  as  well  as  the  written  Law  could  they  serve  God, 
deserve  to  be  kept  in  mind.  Were  pedantry,  exclusiveness, 
and  self-exaltation  the  characteristic  notes  of  this  literature, 
it  is  hard  to  believe  that  it  could  have  kept  its  place  in  the 
affection  of  the  Jews  down  to  our  own  time.  In  fact  there  is 
in  the  Talmud  much  that  breathes  the  spirit  of  religious  trust 
and  moral  earnestness,  Jewish  apologists  have  gone  so  far 
as  to  claim  that  it  is  the  original  from  which  the  Gospel  de- 
rives all  that  Christians  value.  So  much  we  can  hardly  con- 
cede. But  to  be  fair  we  should  recognize  that  if  the  Rabbis 
read  into  the  Bible  what  was  not  there,  they  did  no  more 
than  many  Christian  scholars  have  done.  Even  now  it  is 
difficult  for  many  Christians  to  think  of  Abraham  as  in  any 
way  different  from  the  men  whom  we  of  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury regard  as  models.  If  the  Jewish  wise  men  supposed 
Adam,  who  was  in  direct  communion  with  his  Creator,  to 
have  been  the  wisest  of  men,  similar  theories  have  been  enter- 
tained and  uttered  by  Christian  commentators.  The  Jewish 
demonstration  may  not  commend  itself  to  us  sober  literalists, 
for  it  is  based  on  one  of  those  fanciful  interpretations  that 
we  have  already  become  acquainted  with.  The  Rabbis  say 
that  Adam's  work,  which  is  described  as  dressing  the  garden 
and  keeping  it,  was  really  to  study  the  Tora  and  keep  the 
commandments,  since  the  text  says  "to  keep  the  way  of  the 
tree  of  life."  The  Tora  is  the  true  tree  of  life,  as  we  are  told 
by  Solomon  (Prov.  iii:i8),  and  this  makes  the  demonstration 
complete. 

That  high  moral  earnestness  lies  behind  many  of  these 
strange  interpretations  of  the  written  word  may  be  illustrated 
by  the  benediction  pronounced  on  those  who  sow  beside  all 
waters  and  send  forth  the  feet  of  ox  and  ass  (Is.  xxxii:  20). 
This  means  (says  the  Talmud) :  Blessed  are  you,  Israel,  that 
you  study  the  Tora,  and  show  kindness,  for  then  you  subdue 
(send  forth)  your  evil  passions,  and  not  they  you.^**     The 

1^  Aboda  Zara,  sb. 


LEGALISTIC  INTERPRETATION  31 

interpretation  is  suggested,  as  in  so  many  cases,  by  the  re- 
currence of  the  word  sow  in  the  phrase  'sow  righteousness' 
(Hos.  x:i2).  Archdeacon  Farrar's  charge  of  self-exalta- 
tion of  the  Rabbis  is  based  on  passages  which  are  intended  to 
emphasize  the  study  of  the  Law.  Since  the  real  work  of 
Israel  is  the  observance  of  the  commandments,  and  since  hap- 
piness in  this  world  and  the  next  depends  on  the  observance, 
the  importance  of  the  teacher  follows  as  a  matter  of  course. 
God  Himself,  we  are  told,  spends  three  hours  a  day  in  the 
study  of  His  own  Law,^'  and  even  asks  the  help  of  leading 
Rabbis.  The  three  pillars  on  which  the  world  rests  are  the 
Tora,  the  ritual,  and  kindness.^^  One  should  live  on  bread 
and  water,  sleep  on  the  bare  ground,  live  a  life  of  self-denial 
and  devote  one's  self  to  the  study  of  the  Law.  Then  it  will 
be  well  with  him  in  this  world  and  in  the  one  to  come.  He 
who  learns  a  single  paragraph,  a  single  verse,  a  single  letter 
of  the  sacred  book  from  his  neighbor  must  hold  him  in  honor.^^ 
If  one's  father  and  his  teacher  are  both  in  captivity  and  he 
can  ransom  only  one,  the  teacher  should  be  the  one  chosen, 
for  the  father  gives  physical  life  only,  while  the  teacher  fos- 
ters the  spirit.-"  A  Jewish  scholar  of  the  nineteenth  century 
gives  the  orthodox  point  of  view:  "A  sacred  Book,  any  mis- 
take about  which  involves  temporal  and  eternal  ruin,  demands 
exposition  more  than  any  work  of  antiquity,  especially  when, 
as  in  this  case,  new  conditions  of  political  and  social  life 
modify  men's  convictions."  From  this  point  of  view  the 
honor  in  which  the  Rabbi  is  held  in  every  Jewish  community 
is  intelligible. 

Since  the  Law  has  this  value,  in  the  sight  of  God  as  well  as 
in  the  minds  of  men,  its  gift  to  Israel  is  a  sign  of  God's  love. 
Far  from  being  a  burden,  as  Christians  regard  it,  it  is  the 
glory  of  the  chosen  people.  A  question  arises  in  the  gentile 
mind  just  here:  If  the  boon  is  so  great  why  is  it  given  to  one 
small  fraction  of  the  race  only  and  withheld  from  the  mass 
of  mankind?    The  Rabbis  could  of  course  take  refuge  in  the 

^''  Aboda  Zara,  3b.  "  Qinyan  Tora,  4. 

^8  Pirqe  Aboth,  1,2.  -•'  Baba  Mezia,  33a. 


32     ESS/jrS   IN  BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

incomprehensible  decree  of  the  Maker.  But  they  were  not 
all  content  with  this  as  a  sufficient  answer.  They  assumed 
that  the  Law  had  actually  been  offered  to  all  nations,  but 
Israel  was  the  only  one  that  accepted  it.  When  the  nations 
are  arraigned  at  the  bar  of  God  at  the  Judgment  they  will 
say:  Lord  of  the  worlds,  has  thou  given  us  a  Tora  and  did 
we  refuse  it?  But,  says  the  Talmud,  how  can  they  say  this? 
It  is  written:  The  Lord  came  from  Sinai,  is  gone  forth  from 
Seir,  and  shined  out  from  Mount  Paran;  and  again:  God 
came  from  Teman  and  the  Holy  One  from  Mount  Paran 
(Hab.  iii:3,  cf.  Deut.  xxxiii:2).  Rabbi  Johanan  says  that 
from  these  passages  we  see  that  God  offered  the  Law  to  all  peo- 
ples and  tongues,  but  all  except  Israel  refused.  Even  Israel 
accepted  on  compulsion,  for  God  lifted  the  mountain  over 
them  and  threatened  to  crush  them  with  it  unless  they  would 
accept  the  Law.  This  statement  is  a  deduction  from  the 
verse  (Ex.  xix:i7):  They  stood  under  the  Mount.  The  tra- 
dition that  the  mountain  was  lifted  over  the  people  passed 
over  into  Islam. "^ 

With  this  final  example  of  exegesis  we  confirm  our  ob- 
servation that  Rabbinical  ingenuity  is  a  means  of  deducing 
from  the  sacred  text  that  which  the  expositor  wishes  to  find 
there. 

21  Aboda  Zara,  2b,  and  Quran,  2:  60. 


Ill 

THE   TRIUMPH   OF   ALLEGORY 

UNDER  the  successors  of  Alexander,  Greek  language 
and  Greek  culture  made  their  way  into  Egypt  and  the 
East.  The  Jews  could  not  remain  unaffected.  The 
sharp  conflict  in  the  Maccabean  period  shows  how  near  the 
Jewish  religion  came  to  extinction.  The  conflict  ended  in 
establishing  the  right  of  the  Jew  to  live  according  to  his  own 
customs,  but  the  all-pervading  western  influence  made  itself 
felt  nevertheless.  Jews  were  already  settled  in  the  Greek 
cities  of  Europe,  Asia,  and  Africa,  and  the  Jewish  community 
outside  Palestine  was  larger  than  that  in  the  land  which 
Israel  thought  to  be  peculiarly  its  own.  The  Jewish  quarter 
of  Alexandria  had  more  inhabitants  than  Jerusalem,  and  in 
this  centre  of  Greek  culture  no  one,  African  or  Semite,  could 
escape  acquaintance  with  Greek  thought.  The  result  on 
those  studies  of  the  ancestral  Law  to  which  the  loyal  Jew 
devoted  himself  can  be  imagined,  and  is  attested  by  the  docu- 
ments which  have  come  down  to  us.  In  the  first  place  the 
Scriptures  were  made  accessible  in  something  like  a  Greek 
dress.  At  what  date  the  so-called  Septuagint  translation  was 
made  we  do  not  know,  but  it  is  clear  that  the  greater  part  ol 
the  Old  Testament  was  translated  before  the  beginning  of  our 
era,  and  the  part  most  important  to  the  Jew  —  the  Penta- 
teuch—  circulated  in  Alexandria  as  early  as  150  B.C. 

The  version,  as  we  see,  adheres  closely  to  the  Hebrew 
original  —  so  closely  in  fact  that  parts  of  it  would  scarcely  be 
intelligible  to  one  using  the  language  which  we  call  classic.  But 
being  made  for  the  Jewish  community  which  still  thought  more 
or  less  in  Semitic  forms,  it  would  there  be  intelligible.  The 
difficulty  to  the  man  educated  in  the  school  3f  Plato  would 
be  quite  as  much  in  the  thought  as  in  what  we  may  call  the 

33 


34    ESSJrS  IN  BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

jargon.  Anthropomorphism  is  writ  large  in  the  Hebrew  Bible. 
The  writers  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  God  appeared  in  hu- 
man form,  that  He  ate  and  drank,  that  He  had  a  local  habi- 
tation, that  He  led  his  people  to  victory  over  their  enemies, 
that  He  repented  of  things  that  He  had  done,  that  He  became 
angry  and  was  jealous.  But  to  the  Greek  philosopher  this 
would  be  strange,  even  repellent,  for  he  thought  of  the  Di- 
vinity as  without  body,  parts,  or  passions.  The  educated  Jew 
who  attempted  to  hold  fast  to  the  ancestral  religion,  and  who 
at  the  same  time  was  trained  to  think  in  Greek  forms,  would 
find  himself  in  a  strait  betwixt  two.  Fortunately  for  him  a 
way  of  reconciliation  had  been  pointed  out  to  him  by  the 
Greeks  themselves. 

The  problem  which  confronted  him  was  not  unlike  the 
one  which  the  Greek  thinker  had  encountered  in  his  own 
religion.  Early  religion  clothed  itself  in  myths,  in  Greece  as 
elsewhere.  Anthropomorphism  was  here  in  evidence,  and  in 
a  form  even  cruder  than  among  the  Hebrews.  But  refine- 
ment had  advanced  to  a  point  at  which  the  crudeness  and 
immorality  of  the  stories  of  the  gods  shocked  the  more  re- 
flective, or  the  more  sensitive,  minds.  The  loves  and  hates, 
the  quarrels  and  f eastings,  ascribed  to  the  gods  could  not  be 
true  if  taken  literally.  Yet  the  documents  in  which  they 
were  embodied  had  something  of  the  sacred  character  which 
the  Hebrew  attached  to  his  Bible.  It  may  be  an  exaggera- 
tion to  call  Homer  the  Bible  of  the  Greeks,  and  yet  the  rev- 
erence paid  to  his  poems  was  only  one  remove  from  that  with 
which  the  Jew  regarded  the  Pentateuch.  Antiquity  has 
always,  until  our  own  iconoclastic  age,  carried  weight,  as  is 
evidenced  by  the  respect  with  which  Plato,  for  example,  men- 
tions the  Egyptians.  It  is  plain  that  Greek  thinkers  argued 
in  this  way:  The  Egyptian  nation  is  older  than  our  own;  the 
people  must  have  learned  more  than  we  have,  or  even  have 
drunk  of  the  superior  knowledge  communicated  to  men  in 
the  golden  age.  Yet  this  wisdom  is  not  openly  revealed  to 
us;  there  must  be  an  esoteric  teaching  concealed  in  their 
mythology. 


THE   TRIUMPH  OF  ALLEGORY  35 

It  was  evident  that  the  Egyptian  mythology,  in  the  forms  in 
which  it  was  current,  was  puerile  enough.  There  was  all  the 
more  reason  to  suppose  that  it  presented  enigmas  which  the 
thoughtful  student  could  solve.  Some  confirmation  may  have 
been  found  in  the  fact  that  the  Greek  oracles  gave  their 
responses  in  obscure  or  figurative  language.  What  the  theory 
led  to  is  made  evident  by  Plutarch  and  he  will  serve  as  ouiT 
example,  although  he  lived  somewhat  later  than  the  period 
with  which  we  are  immediately  concerned.  In  his  well-known 
tract  on  Isis  and  Osiris  he  takes  an  Egyptian  myth  as  his 
subject.  The  myth  relates  that  Osiris  and  Isis  were  brother 
and  sister,  and  also  husband  and  wife.  Their  half-brother 
Typhon  slew  Osiris  and  tore  his  body  into  sixteen  pieces, 
whereupon  Isis  sought  the  pieces  throughout  the  land  of  Egypt 
and  put  them  together.  After  recounting  the  story,  Plutarch 
expressly  warns  his  readers  that  they  must  not  suppose  these 
things  to  have  happened  as  they  are  related,  but  must  inter- 
pret then  symbolically.  Just  as  the  Greeks,  he  says,  declare 
that  Kronos  is  an  allegorical  symbol  of  time,  Hera  of  air,  and 
that  the  birth  of  Hephaistos  is  a  picturesque  representation  of 
the  transformation  of  air  into  fire,  so  also  among  the  Egyptians 
are  those  who  maintain  that  Osiris  symbolizes  the  Nile,  Isis 
the  earth,  and  Typhon  the  sea  into  which  the  Nile  falls  to 
disappear  and  be  scattered  except  such  parts  as  have  been  ab- 
stracted by  the  earth  to  make  her  fruitful. 

Be  it  noted  that  even  if  Osiris  was  originally  the  spirit  of 
the  Nile,  or  the  Nile  itself  considered  as  a  divinity,  Plutarch 
had  no  knowledge  of  the  fact.  The  story  as  it  came  to  him 
was  a  myth  pure  and  simple,  abstracted  from  its  naturalistic 
basis,  if  such  it  had,  and  his  attempt  to  rationalize  it  was  an" 
effort  to  harmonize  it  with  his  own  philosophy  or  theology." 
To  his  thought  the  Egyptian  priests  "concealed  a  philosophy 
in  myths  and  narratives  containing  dim  hints  and  suggestions 
of  truth."^  Another  example  is  his  treatment  of  the  Egyptian 
worship  of  the  crocodile.  The  crocodile  he  finds  to  be  an 
apt  symbol  of  the  divinity,  because  alone  of  all  animals  it 

1  Oakesmith,  Religion  of  Plutarch   (1902),  p.   190. 


36    ESSJrS  IN  BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

has  no  tongue  —  the  divine  word  has  no  need  of  the  organ  of 
speech  to  make  itself  understood.  Again,  the  Egyptians  do  not 
really  name  the  dog  Hermes  (he  has  in  mind  the  jackal, 
Anubis),  but  they  bring  the  animal's  watchfulness,  untiring- 
ness,  and  intelligence  into  relation  with  the  most  intelligent 
of  the  gods.-  The  fact  that  the  Egyptians  make  sun  and 
moon  (divinities)  travel  across  the  sky  in  boats  is  explained 
not  by  the  obvious  fact  that,  the  Nile  being  the  Egyptian 
highway,  boats  naturally  suggested  themselves  to  the  imagi- 
nation rather  than  chariots;  but  by  the  alleged  dogma  that 
water  is  the  primal  element  from  which  sun  and  moon,  like 
all  other  things,  take  their  rise.  The  taboo  of  onions  is  made 
the  occasion  of  the  following  explanation:  'Tn  the  sacred 
customs  there  is  nothing  irrational,  fabulous,  or  superstitious, 
as  some  imagine.  Some  are  founded  on  ethical  or  utilitarian 
reasons,  others  are  not  without  historical  or  scientific  subtlety, 
as  is  the  case  with  the  onion.  For  that  Diktus,  the  foster- 
child  of  Isis,  when  picking  onions  fell  into  the  river  and  per- 
ished is  unbelievable.  The  priests  abhor  and  reject  onions, 
because  they  grow  and  flourish  only  when  the  moon  is  waning. 
Moreover  the  use  of  the  onion  is  good  neither  for  those  who 
fast  nor  for  those  who  feast,  in  one  case  because  it  causes 
thirst,  in  the  other  because  it  induces  weeping.""  Similar 
reasons  for  the  taboo  of  swine  are  given,  but  need  not  be  re- 
produced here. 

I  have  cited  Plutarch  because  of  the  directness  with  which 
he  asserts  the  validity  of  the  allegorical  method.  But  the 
method  is  earlier,  as  we  gather  from  some  allusions  of  Plato. 
It  is  not  too  bold  to  assume  that  when  philosophy  had  ad- 
vanced as  far  as  it  had  when  Socrates  was  questioning  every- 
body about  the  nature  of  man  and  of  virtue,  there  were 
already  three  types  of  thought  developed.  On  the  one  side 
conservative  minds  held  onto  the  myths  which  had  come  down 
from  antiquity,  and  accepted  them  in  their  literal  sense.  To 
criticize  these  venerable  stories  seemed  to  them  to  under- 
mine religion  and  the  social  order.    At  the  other  extreme  were 

-  his  and  Osiris,  ii.  ^  Ibid.,  8. 


V 


THE   TRIUMPH  OF  ALLEGORT  37 

the  radicals,  who  would  reject  the  traditions  and  with  them 
religion  itself.  These  said:  It  is  not  possible  that  the  gods, 
if  gods  there  be,  should  be  pleased  with  festivals  and  sacri- 
fices, with  victims  torn  in  pieces,  fastings  and  loud  lamenta- 
tions, even  foul  language,  shrieks  and  dishevelled  hair.  Xeno- 
phanes  asserted  that  the  poets  attribute  to  the  gods  all  that 
is  shameful  and  blameworthy  among  men.  The  disciples  of 
Pythagoras  related  that  their  master  had  been  admitted  to 
Hades  before  his  death,  and  had  there  seen  Hesiod  chained 
to  a  brass  pillar  and  gnashing  his  teeth  in  pain;  Homer  also 
hung  on  a  tree  and  surrounded  with  serpents.  This  was  the 
punishment  of  the  poets  for  what  they  had  said  concerning 
the  gods.  Plato,  as  we  know,  would  exclude  the  poets  from 
his  ideal  commonwealth  for  the  same  reason. 

Between  the  two  parties  were  the  allegorists.  They  could 
not  believe  that  authors  so  venerable  could  mean  to  attribute 
to  the  divinities  the  actions  which  they  related.  The  sages, 
they  thought,  in  order  to  keep  their  wisdom  from  the  common 
herd  had  concealed  it  under  figurative  narratives.  Children, 
the  unlearned,  the  frivolous,  could  find  delight  in  the  story 
as  it  was  told,  but  men  of  mature  understanding  would  dis- 
cover the  deeper  meaning,  even  the  laws  which  govern  nature 
and  mankind.  The  theory  was  encouraged  by  the  fact  that 
certain  religious  rites  were  observed  in  secrecy,  and  partici- 
pated in  only  by  the  initiated.  Allegory  was  used  at  least 
as  early  as  the  time  of  Anaxagoras,  and  by  the  date  of  Philo 
was  well  established.  The  thorough-going  way  in  which  the 
method  was  applied  to  Homer  may  be  illustrated  from  a 
treatise  on  the  subject  which  has  come  down  to  us  and  from 
which  I  quote: 

"The  battle  in  which  the  gods  took  part  —  Poseidon  against  Apollo,  Hermes 
and  Athene  confronting  Artemis  and  Ares  —  could  not  be  reconciled  with 
any  elevated  idea  of  the  gods.  What  the  poet  designed  was  to  give  us  a  theory 
of  physics.  Poseidon  represents  the  element  of  water,  Apollo  that  of  fire. 
These  two  are  opposed  to  each  other  and  the  battle  is  a  symbolical  represen- 
tation of  this  fact."  * 

*  Heraclidis  Pontici  Allegoriae  Homeri,  edidit  Gale  {Opuscula  Mythologka, 
1688). 


38     ESSJrS  IN  BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

According  to  another  hypothesis,  Apollo  is  the  sun,  his 
arrows  are  the  sun's  rays,  Hera  is  the  air,  Hephaistos  the 
fire,  the  god  Scamander  the  river  of  that  name.  Athene  is 
prudence  opposed  to  Ares,  unrestrained  passion.  When  the 
poet  tells  us  that  Athene  descended  from  heaven  at  Hera's 
command  and  restrained  Achilles  from  attacking  Agamemnon, 
he  means  that  the  prudent  brain  of  the  hero  checked  the  anger 
rising  in  his  breast. 

One  of  the  myths  which  gave  the  most  offence  was  the  one 
alluded  to  in  the  first  book  of  the  Iliad,  where  Achilles  re- 
minds his  mother  Thetis,  a  sea-nymph,  how  at  one  time  Hera 
and  Pallas  Athene  with  the  help  of  Poseidon  overcame  Zeus 
and  bound  him.  From  his  humiliating  situation  he  was  re- 
leased by  Thetis,  who  called  to  her  help  the  hundred-armed 
Briareus.  Doubtless  the  poet  took  the  myth  as  he  found  it, 
without  inquiring  for  any  deeper  meaning.  To  him  it  was  a 
picturesque  and  welcome  embellishment  of  his  narrative.  But 
to  later  thinkers  it  was  inconceivable  that  Zeus,  chief  of  the 
gods  and  ruler  of  Olympus,  should  have  suffered  such  an  in- 
dignity. Hence  the  attempt  to  interpret  it  which  found  in  it 
a  picture  of  the  conflict  of  the  elements  in  nature.  Poseidon, 
as  we  have  seen,  represents  water,  and  Hera  air;  Zeus  is  now 
fire,  and  Athene  earth.  If  fire  prevailed  over  the  other  elements 
the  world  would  be  destroyed.  Hence  the  other  three  con- 
spire to  hold  it  in  check.  They  would,  however,  extinguish  it 
altogether,  did  not  Harmony  (Thetis)  call  upon  Force  (Bria- 
reus) to  restrain  the  three  and  free  fire  from  its  bonds. 

How  forced  and  unnatural,  and,  we  may  say,  unpoetic  also, 
this  exposition  is,  needs  hardly  to  be  pointed  out.  Another 
example  is  the  attempt  to  interpret  the  well-known  story  of 
Prometheus,  chained  to  the  Caucasus  and  tortured  by  a  vulture 
which  constantly  devours  his  liver,  which  as  constantly  grows 
again.  This  lasts  until  the  sufferer  is  delivered  by  Heracles. 
Diodorus  gets  rid  of  the  improbabilities  of  the  myth  by  sup- 
posing that  Prometheus  was  governor  of  one  of  the  provinces 
of  Egypt.  The  Nile,  violent  as  an  eagle,  broke  through  the 
dykes  and  devastated  the  country.     Prometheus  in  despair 


THE   TRIUMPH  OF  ALLEGORY  39 

would  have  killed  himself  had  not  Heracles  repaired  the  dykes 
and  driven  the  river  back  to  its  bed.  Thus  the  historian  re- 
'moved  the  myth,  and  the  poetry  also. 

The  logical  necessity  of  giving  a  symbolical  interpretation 
to  a  sacred  literature  when  its  literal  sense  no  longer  meets 
the  needs  of  its  readers  is  thus  illustrated  in  the  history  of 
Greek  thought.  The  line  between  symbol,  type,  and  allegory, 
is  not  always  easy  to  draw.  In  its  actual  application  the 
word  type  designates  something  which  points  forward  to  the 
f^ture^  The  allegory  is  usually  a  narrative  whose  real  mean- 
ing is  not  that  which  appears  on  the  surface.  Bunyan's  great 
work  might  be  read  by  a  child  as  the  story  of  a  man  who 
travelled  through  the  world  and  met  various  adventures.  In  the 
author's  intent  the  experiences  are  those  of  the  human  soul,  and 
the  adventures  are  its  trials  and  temptations.  Our  concern 
here  is  with  the  application  of  the  method  to  the  Hebrew  Scrip- 
tures. In  fact  it  is  used  by  the  later  Biblical  authors.  Thus  the 
author  of  Daniel  tells  us  of  the  four  beasts  he  saw  in  a  vision 
and  of  their  combats.  The  interpretation  which  he  receives 
shows  that  the  history  of  the  four  world-empires  is  repre- 
sented in  this  way.  The  same  writer  interprets  Jeremiah 
allegorically,  we  may  say,  when  he  makes  the  prophet's  seventy 
years  mean  seventy  periods  of  seven  years  each.  In  the  book 
of  Enoch  we  have  an  extended  allegory  in  the  animal  vision. 
The  history  of  the  world  down  to  the  author's  own  time  is 
here  recounted,  only  the  human  characters  are  represented  by 
bulls,  sheep  and  various  ravenous  beasts.  The  prevalence  of 
picturesque  embodiments  of  religious  ideas  in  both  the  Greek 
and  the  Jewish  community  naturally  led  to  the  application  of 
the  method  to  the  Old  Testament. 

The  man  who  did  this  most  thoroughly  was  Philo  of  Alex- 
andria^  whose  life  began  a  little  before  our  era  and  extended 
well  into  the  first  century.  That  he  was  a  loyal  Jew  admits 
of  no  doubt.  He  seems  to  have  had  no  adequate  knowledge 
of  Hebrew,  but  was  familiar  with  the  Greek  version,  to  which 
he  ascribed  the  authority  which  the  original  possessed  for  the 
Palestinian  schools.     He  repeatedly  emphasizes  the  priestly 


A/-' 


40    ESSJrS  IN   BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

character  of  the  Hebrew  people,  a  people  called  by  God  to 
be  priest  and  prophet  for  the  whole  human  race,  to  pray  and 
sacrifice  for  all  men.  The  Mosaic  Tora  he  regards  as  of 
perpetual  obligation.  Moses  is  to  him  the  only  lawgiver 
whose  laws  remain  permanent,  unchanged,  and  unshaken,  as 
though  sealed  by  nature.  Moses  "combined  in  his  person 
the  qualities  of  king  and  philosopher  not  only,  but  also  those 
of  lawgiver,  chief  priest  and  prophet."^  He  was  inspired  in 
the  fullest  sense  of  the  word,  and  his  laws  are  really  divine. 
Holding  these  opinions  Philo  was  yet  thoroughly  educated  in 
the  Greek  learning  of  his  time.  He  was  prepared  to  mediate 
between  two 'apparently  opposed  types  of  thought,  not  only  by 
the  allegorical  method  already  in  vogue,  but  by  the  Platonic 
view  of  inspiration.  According  to  this  "no  man  when  in  his 
wits  attains  prophetic  truth  and  inspiration;  but  when  he  re- 
ceives the  inspired  word  either  his  intelligence  is  enthralled, 
in  sleep  or  he  is  demented  by  some  distemper  or  possession. 
.  .  .  And  for  this  reason  it  is  customary  to  appoint  interpre- 
ters to  be  judges  of  true  inspiration.  Some  call  them  prophets, 
quite  unaware  that  they  are  not  to  be  called  prophets  at  all, 
but  only  interpreters  of  prophecy.'"'  Since  according  to  the 
Hebrew  view  also  the  prophet  may  be  so  "possessed"  by  the 
Spirit  as  to  be  beside  himself  —  though  this  is  not  affirmed 
of  the  prophets  whose  books  are  included  in  the  Canon  — 
here  was  common  ground.  We  may  in  fact  say  that  Philo 
regarded  himself  as  the  interpreter  of  the  divine  oracles,  such 
an  one  as  Plato  has  in  mind. 

The  task  of  reconciling  the  facts  with  the  theory  was  not 
easy.  Two  problems  presented  themselves.  The  Hebrew 
Scriptures,  that  is  the  Pentateuch,  to  which  Philo  gives  al- 
most all  his  attention,  contain  a  law,  a  rule  of  life  with  many 
specific  injunctions  for  daily  conduct.  To  justify  these  in  a 
community  which  observed  other  customs  came  first.  In  the 
second  place  the  Hebrew  affirmations  concerning  God,  anthro- 
pomorphic as  we  have  seen,  must  be  reconciled  with  the 

5  De  Vita  Mosis,  ii,  2f. 

c  Plato,   Timceus,  494    (Jowett's  translation). 


THE   TRIUMPH  OF  ALLEGORY  41 

Platonic  theology,  according  to  which  the  divinity  is  removed 
from  the  material  world.  Philo,  like  Plato,  is  sure  that  God 
exists.  But  His  true  nature  is  so  far  above  our  own  that  He 
is  really  incomprehensible.  Fortunately  for  Philo  the  ear- 
lier thinkers  had  posited  a  mediating  being,  the  Logos.  At 
the  very  outset  of  his  discussions  of  the  Law  we  find  him 
having  recourse  to  this  h3qDothesis.  The  text  says  that  man 
was  made  in  the  image  of  God.  To  Philo  this  cannot  be  true 
in  the  natural  or  material  sense.  The  difficulty  is  overcome  by 
supposing  that  man  was  actually  made  in  the  image  of  the 
mediating  Logos.  Even  then  the  image  is  not  corporeal  but 
in  the  soul.  The  same  difficulty  occurred  to  the  Rabbis,  for 
they  affirmed  that  what  was  meant  was  that  man  was  made  in 
the  image  of  an  angel. ^  Similarly,  the  ideas  which  play  so 
large  a  part  in  the  theology  of  Plato  are  welcome  to  Philo. 
He  affirms  that  at  the  creation  first  an  incorporeal  heaven  and 
earth  were  made,  and  the  idea  of  air  and  space,  followed  by 
the  incorporeal  substance  of  water.®  The  way  had  been 
opened  for  such  a  statement  by  the  author  of  Proverbs,  to 
whom  Wisdom  is  already  a  demiurge,  active  in  the  work  of 
creation. 

Philo  nowhere  denies  the  historicity  of  the  narrative  given 
in  the  sacred  book,  but  his  interest  is  altogether  in  the  spir- 
itual application.  In  fact  he  is  a  teacher  of  ethics  and  it  is 
not  unreasonable  to  suppose  that  his  works  represent  the  kind 
of  sermon  he  was  accustomed  to  preach  to  the  cultivated  Jews 
of  Alexandria.  Examples  meet  us  on  every  page.  Eden  is  to 
him  the  divine  garden  in  which  all  the  plants  are  gifted  with 
reason  and  soul,  for  the  fruits  they  bear  are  the  virtues.  The 
three  Patriachs  are  types  of  Stoic  ideals  —  Abraham,  the  man 
who  learns  virtue;  Isaac,  the  one  born  virtuous;  Jacob,  the  one 
who  attains  virtue  by  exercise.  Enoch,  Noah,  and  Enosh  form 
a  similar  triad.  The  altar  is  the  thankful  soul  of  the  wise  man, 
compacted  of  perfect,  uninjured,  and  undivided  virtues  —  the 
altar  it  will  be  remembered  is  to  be  built  of  unhewn  stones. 

"^  Bereschith  Rabba  p.  96.     How  far  Philo's  speculations  have  influenced 
Christian  dogmatic  teaching  it  is  not  now  our  purpose  to-fiiquire. 
^  De  Opificio  Mundi,  29,  cf.  36  and  129. 


42    ESSJTS  IN  BIBLICAL  INTERPRETATION 

On  it  burns  the  inextinguishable  flame  of  wisdom,  for  wisdom 
is  the  Hght  of  the  soul.  According  to  the  literal  meaning  of 
Scripture  Abraham's  migrations  were  made  by  a  wise  man, 
but  according  to  the  rules  of  allegory  by  the  virtue-loving  and 
God-seeking  soul.  The  king  of  Egypt  in  the  Joseph  story  is 
the  human  spirit,  his  officers  are  bread,  dainties,  and  drink. 
These  are  eunuchs  because  the  voluptuary  devoted  to  them  is 
unable  to  beget  reflection,  self-control,  or  any  virtue.  Isaac 
sacrificed  by  his  father  represents  cheerfulness  of  soul  (his 
name  means  Laughter)  which  the  wise  man  sacrifices  to  God. 
The  four  kings  who  came  against  Sodom  are  desire,  concu- 
piscence, fear  and  melancholy.  The  five  who  resist  them  are 
the  five  senses.  The  four  affections  rule  over  the  senses,  but 
when  age  comes  the  senses  can  no  longer  pay  tribute  to  the 
affections  —  the  eyes  become  dim,  the  ears  dull,  and  so  with 
the  others.  But  the  wise  man  drives  away  the  affections  as 
Abraham  conquered  the  invading  kings,  for  when  reason  arms 
itself  with  the  virtues  and  with  the  maxims  of  wise  conduct  it 
overcomes  the  desires  and  appetites. 

Most  far-fetched  from  our  point  of  view  is  the  interpreta- 
tion of  the  garments  of  the  Highpriest  as  a  symbol  of  the  uni- 
verse. His  tunic  of  blue  which  reaches  from  his  neck  to  his 
feet  represents  the  atmosphere,  which  also  is  blue  and  reaches 
from  the  heights  to  the  depths.  Over  this  is  the  breastplate, 
which  has  on  the  shoulders  two  jewels  hemispherical  in  form; 
the  two  jewels  are  the  two  hemispheres  of  the  sky,  and  the 
twelve  precious  stones  on  the  breast  are  the  twelve  signs  of 
the  Zodiac.  They  are  in  four  rows  to  represent  the  four  seasons 
of  the  year.  The  whole  is  called  in  the  Greek  version  Logeion, 
the  Reasonable,  because  everything  in  heaven  is  arranged  ac- 
cording to  reason,  and  mathematics.  In  connection  with  the 
breastplate  the  lawgiver  ordered  the  Revelation  and  Truth 
(Urim  and  Thummim).  By  Truth  he  indicates  that  false- 
hood cannot  enter  heaven,  that  in  fact  it  is  banished  to  earth 
and  dwells  in  the  soul  of  wicked  men;  by  Revelation  he  in- 
dicates that  the  heavenly  bodies  reveal  to  us  events  of  earth 
which  are  in  themselves  unintelligible. 


THE   TRIUMPH  OF  ALLEGORT  43 

These  examples  sufficiently  show  how  the  theology  of  the 
Greeks  was  read  into  the  Hebrew  Book.  The  other  problem 
—  the  justification  of  the  observance  of  the  Law  in  all  its  de- 
tails, was  quite  as  urgent  and  perhaps  more  difficult.  The 
peculiar  social  customs  of  the  Jews,  especially  their  segrega- 
tion from  their  gentile  neighbors,  had  early  attracted  the 
attention,  and  also  the  ridicule,  of  these  same  gentiles.  Their 
refusal  to  eat  many  of  the  things  which  men  of  other  faiths 
found  both  nutritious  and  enjoyable  was  a  constant  cause  of 
remark.  But  to  Philo,  as  we  have  seen,  all  the  regulations 
of  the  Law  were  of  divine  origin,  and  however  they  might  be 
spiritualized  they  must  be  obeyed  in  their  literal  sense.  Not 
only  was  Moses  inspired  in  the  fullest  meaning  of  the  word, 
but  the  Law  was  the  law  of  nature.  Abraham  obeyed  the 
commands  of  God,  not  only  those  made  known  in  word  and 
writing,  but  also  those  revealed  by  nature  in  distinct  signs; 
for  he  who  considers  the  order  which  rules  in  nature  learns  to 
live  a  life  conformed  to  the  Law  (the  Hebrew  Law  is  undoubt- 
edly meant ).^  Naturally  the  author  is  glad  when  he  finds 
support  for  his  theory  in  the  customs  of  other  nations,  —  the 
Sabbath  for  example,  the  universal  festival  and  birthday  of 
the  world-,  is  thought  to  be  confirmed  by  the  fact  that  in 
Greece  the  seventh  day  of  every  month  is  consecrated  to 
Apollo.  The  sacredness  of  the  number  seven  was  in  fact 
widely  recognized  by  gentiles  as  well  as  Jews,  and  with  this 
as  a  starting  point  Philo  was  able  to  introduce  Pythagorean 
speculation  concerning  numbers  into  his  system. 

Evidence  of  a  desire  to  justify  those  parts  of  the  Law 
which  to  the  gentile  seemed  irrational,  is  given  by  Philo  in 
his  discussion  of  clean  and  unclean  fish,  flesh,  and  fowl.  He 
was  not  alone  in  this  desire,  as  is  evidenced  by  a  pseudepi- 
graphic  book  which  was  apparently  written  by  a  contemporary 
of  his.  It  is  a  sample  of  a  considerable  literature  by  which 
in  this  period  the  Jews  sought  to  concihate  their  gentile  neigh- 
bors. This  book  is  the  Letter  of  Aristeas,  in  which  a  Jew 
poseS"  as  a  Greek  officer  at  the  court  of  Ptolemy  Philadelphus. 

9  De  Abrahamo,  XIII. 


44    ESSJrS  IN  BIBLICAL  INTERPRETATION 

In  this  disguise  he  gives  an  account  of  the  origin  of  the 
Greek  version  of  the  Law,  and  takes  occasion,  not  onjy  to 
magnify  the  merits  of  that  work,  but  to  glorify  the  Jewish 
Temple  and  the  Jewish  religion  as  well.  What  now  interests 
us  is  his  explanation  of  the  Mosaic  law  of  meats.  Writing  to 
an  alleged  brother  officer,  he  gives  us  the  following: 

You  must  not  fall  into  the  degrading  notion  that  it  was  out  of  regard  to 
mice  and  weasels  that  Moses  drew  up  his  Law  with  such  exceeding  care.  All 
these  ordinances  were  made  for  the  sake  of  righteousness,  to  aid  the  quest  for 
virtue  and  the  perfecting  of  character.  For  all  the  birds  we  use  are  tame 
and  distinguished  by  cleanliness,  feeding  on  various  kinds  of  grain  and  pulse, 
such  as  pigeons,  turtle  doves,  locusts,  partridges,  geese  also  and  birds  of  this 
class.  But  the  birds  that  are  forbidden  you  will  find  to  be  wild  and  car- 
nivorous, tyrannizing  over  others.  .  .  .  And  so  by  naming  them  unclean  he 
(Moses)  gave  a  sign  by  means  of  them  that  those  for  whom  the  Law  was  or- 
dained must  practice  righteousness  in  their  hearts  and  not  tyrannize  over  others. 
.  .  .  Wherefore  all  the  rules  he  has  laid  down  ...  are  enacted  with  the 
object  of  teaching  us  a  moral  lesson.  For  the  division  of  the  hoof  and  the 
separation  of  the  claws  are  intended  to  teach  us  that  we  must  discriminate 
between  our  actions,  with  a  view  to  the  practice  of  virtue.  ...  All  animals 
which  are  cloven-footed  and  chew  the  cud  represent  to  the  initiated  the  sym- 
bol of  memory.  For  the  act  of  chewing  the  cud  is  nothing  else  than  medi- 
tating on  life  and  existence."  ^° 

The  citation  is  only  one  evidence  of  the  prevalence  of  the 
allegorical  method  in  this  period.  The  book  of  Wisdom, 
like  Philo,  allegorizes  the  robe  of  the  Highpriest,  affirming 
that  in  the  long  garment  was  the  whole  world  (xviii:24),  and 
Josephus  takes  the  Mosaic  tabernacle  to  be  symbolical,  its 
three  divisions  corresponding  to  the  three  divisions  —  sea, 
land,  and  sky.  The  twelve  loaves  of  Shewbread  indicate  the 
months  of  the  year,  and  the  seven  lamps  of  the  candelabrum 
are  the  seven  planets.  The  materials  of  the  curtains  are 
significant  as  well  as  the  garments  of  the  Highpriest.^^  In 
this  company  of  expositors,  however,  Philo  was  easily  the 
chief,  because  of  the  thoroughness  with  which  he  carried  out 
the  principle.  For  this  reason  his  influence  on  Christian 
scholars  is  of  the  first  importance.     The  Christians  brought 

^°  Epistle    of   Aristeas,    145-154,    translated    in    Charles,    Apocrypha   and 
Pseudepigrapha  of  the  Old  Testament  (1913),  11,  p.  108. 
11  Antiquities,  III,  7. 


THE   TRIUMPH  OF  ALLEGORY  45 

their  sacred  Book  with  them  from  Judaism,  but  their  pur- 
pose in  studying  it  was  not  the  same  which  we  have  found 
among  the  Jews.  They  believed  the  Law  as  law  to  be  no 
longer  binding.  But  as  prediction  it  was  important.  With 
tlie  faith  that  this  was  the  main  purpose  of  the  sacred  oracles 
they  scrutinized  every  passage  for  adumbrations  of  the  Christ. 
That  the  allegorical  method  gave  them  welcome  help  needs 
no  demonstration.  To  a  moderate  extent  it  is  discoverable 
in  the  New  Testament.  In  the  rock  which,  according  to 
Rabbinical  exegesis,  followed  the  Israelites  in  their  wander- 
ings Paul  finds  a  type  of  Christ,  and  the  Apostle  asserts  in  so 
many  words  that  the  story  of  Hagar  and  Sarah  is  an  allegory 
of  the  two  dispensations,  Jewish  and  Christian.  More 
thorough-going  is  the  author  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews. 
By  an  elaborate  argument  he  proves  that  Jesus,  though  not 
of  priestly  stock,  was  yet  the  true  Highpriest,  antitype  of  the 
one  described  in  the  Pentateuch,  and  that  he  was  in  fact 
speciiically  predicted  by  the  Psalmist  who  brings  him  into 
the  line  of  Melchizedek.  The  sacrifices  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment are  therefore  only  shadows  of  the  true  sacrifice,  that  by 
which  Jesus  offered  himself  to  God.  The  way  to  this  appre- 
hension had  been  already  opened  by  the  theory,  made  known 
to  us  by  Josephus,  that  the  tabernacle  erected  by  Moses  was 
a  copy  of  the  universe.  The  true  Holy  of  Holies  was  there- 
fore the  heaven  where  God  resides,  and  the  Highpriest's  en- 
trance into  the  earthly  sanctuary  was  an  allegorical  foreshad- 
owing of  Jesus'  return  to  his  heavenly  Father.  This  has 
become  so  fully  a  part  of  Christian  tradition  that  we  do  not 
readily  see  how  startling  it  must  have  been  to  the  strict  Jew; 
for  to  him  the  sacrificial  system  was  the  appointed  way  of 
serving  God,  and  was  intended  to  be  perpetual.  On  the  other 
hand  it  undoubtedly  gave  relief  to  those  believers  who  had  a 
wider  view,  and  who  were  already  reconciling  themselves  to 
the  fact  that  the  destruction  of  the  temple  made  the  sacrifices 
no  longer  possible. 

The  allegorical  system  thus  introduced  to  the  Church  be- 
came the  recognized  method  of  dealing  with  the  older  Scrip- 


46    ESSATS  IN  BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

tures.  Justin  Martyr,  for  example,  denies  that  the  literal 
sense  of  the  Old  Testament  is  valid;  otherwise  polygamy 
would  be  lawful.  The  cases  where  the  Patriarchs  are  said  to 
have  more  wives  than  one  are  intended  to  be  interpreted 
allegorically.  His  exegesis  enables  him  to  find  Christ  where 
we  should  hesitate  to  look  for  him.  He  sees  in  the  two  goats 
which  are  brought  into  the  sanctuary  on  the  Day  of  Atone- 
ment, t5^es  of  the  two  advents  of  Christ.  An  Old  Testament 
poet  describes  Judah  as  one  who  washes  his  garments  in  wine 
(Gen.  xlix:ii).  To  Justin  this  means  that  Jesus  purifies  his 
people  by  his  blood. ^^  The  Paschal  lamb  when  prepared  for 
roasting  is  pierced  by  two  skewers  at  right  angles  with  each 
other.  This  is  taken  to  be  a  type  of  the  cross  on  which  Jesus 
suffered  —  naturally,  we  may  say,  for  Paul  had  already  called 
Christ  our  Passover.  Jacob  served  Laban  for  sheep;  so  Jesus 
became  a  servant  that  he  might  purchase  his  flock.  The  ass 
and  its  foal  used  by  Jesus  at  his  triumphal  entry  into  Jeru- 
salem are  symbols,  one  of  the  Jews  under  the  yoke  of  the 
Law,  the  other  of  gentile  Christians  freed  from  it.^^ 

That  the  sacrifices  of  the  Old  Testament  point  forward  to 
Christ  is  a  commonplace  of  these  writers.  But  it  is  somewhat 
surprising  to  find  the  one  which  from  its  sex  we  should  sup- 
pose least  typical  applied  in  detail  as  it  is  by  Barnabas.  This 
is  the  sacrifice  of  a  red  heifer,  and  the  use  of  its  ashes  to 
purify  those  unclean  from  contact  with  a  dead  body.  The 
application  deserves  quotation  and  is  as  follows: 

But  what  think  you  means  the  type  where  the  commandment  is  given  to 
Israel  that  those  men  whose  sins  are  full-grown  offer  a  heifer  and  slaughter 
and  burn  it,  and  that  then  childreni*  take  up  the  ashes  and  cast  them  into 
vessels  and  twist  the  scarlet  wool  on  a  tree  (see  here  again  is  a  type  of  the 
cross  and  the  scarlet  wool)  and  the  hyssop,  and  that,  this  done,  the  children 
should  sprinkle  the  people  one  by  one  that  they  may  be  puriiied  from  their 

^2  Dialogue  with  Trypho,  54:1. 

13  The  examples  are  from  the  Dialogue  with  Trypho,  and  I  have  not  at- 
tempted to  distinguish  between  allegory,  type,  and  symbol.  Further  citations 
may  be  found  in  Fullerton,  Prophecy  and  Authority  {1919),  a  valuable  dis- 
cussion of  the  attitude  of  Christian  expositors  towards  the  Old  Testament. 
The  application  of  allegory  to  the  New  Testament  is  not  here  entered  upon. 

1*  The  children  are  not  in  the  text,  and  must  be  taken  from  oral  tradition. 


THE   TRIUMPH  OF  ALLEGORY  47 

sins?  Understand  how  in  all  plainness  it  is  spoken  to  you.  The  calfi^  is 
Jesus;  the  men  that  offer  it,  being  sinners  are  they  that  offered  him  for 
slaughter.  .  .  .  The  children  who  sprinkle  are  they  who  preach  to  us  the 
forgiveness  of  sins  and  purity  of  heart,  they  to  whom  he  gave  power  to  preach 
the  Gospel;  and  they  are  twelve  as  a  testimony  to  the  tribes,  because  there 
are  twelve  tribes  of  Israel.  But  wherefore  are  the  children  who  sprinkle  three? 
For  a  testimony  to  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  because  these  three  are  mighty 
before  God.  And  why  the  wool  on  the  wood?  Because  the  kingdom  of  Jesus 
is  on  the  wood,^^  and  because  they  who  hope  in  him  shall  live  forever.  And 
why  wool  and  hyssop  at  the  same  time?  Because  in  his  kingdom  there  shall 
be  evil  and  foul  days  in  which  we  shall  be  saved;  for  he  who  suffers  in  the 
flesh  is  healed  by  the  foulness  of  hyssop.^^ 

The  same  author  finds  significance  in  the  number  of  Abra- 
ham's servants  (318).  By  a  play  on  the  numerical  signifi- 
cance of  the  letters,  quite  similar  to  what  we  have  found 
among  the  Rabbis,  he  finds  that  they  point  to  the  cross  and 
to  the  name  of  Jesus/*  This  interpretation  of  the  mystical 
number  passed  over  to  the  Fathers  and  recurs  in  Clement  of 
Alexandria,  Ambrose,  Augustine  and  later.  With  reference 
to  the  animals  forbidden  for  food,  Barnabas  follows  the  line 
marked  out  by  Aristeas,  but  is  more  elaborate.  According  to 
him  swine  are  prohibited  because  they  are  ungrateful,  crying 
out  for  food  when  hungry,  but  silent  when  satisfied.  The 
rule  against  birds  of  prey  is  to  teach  us  to  avoid  robbers  and 
violent  men.  Certain  fish  which  lurk  in  the  depths  are  t5T3es 
of  wicked  men  who  work  in  concealment.  The  hare  and 
hyena  are  lascivious,  according  to  popular  natural  history, 
and  are  to  be  avoided  on  this  account,  "Concerning  meats 
then  Moses  received  three  decrees  and  uttered  them  in  the 
spiritual  sense.  But  they  (the  Jews)  accepted  them  according 
to  the  lust  of  the  flesh,  as  though  they  referred  to  eating.  But 
David  received  knowledge  of  the  same  three  decrees  and 
says:  ''Blessed  is  the  man  who  has  not  gone  in  the  counsel  of 
the  ungodly  —  as  the  fishes  go  in  the  darkness  into  the 
depths;  and  has  not  stood  in  the  way  of  sinners  —  like  those 

1'  It  has  changed  its  gender  to  meet  the  exigency  of  the  interpretation. 
1^  Allusion  to  the  cross. 
"  Epistle  of  Barnabas,  VIII. 
18  Ibid.,  IK,  8. 


^ 


48     ESSJrS  IN   BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

who  pretend  to  fear  the  Lord,  but  sin  like  swine;  and  has  not 
sat  in  the  seat  of  the  scorners  —  like  the  birds  who  sit  and 
watch  for  prey."  After  this  we  are  not  surprised  to  learn 
that  Moses  holding  up  his  hands  in  the  battle  with  Amalek  is 
a  type  of  Jesus  on  the  cross,  and  that  the  declaration  of  God: 
"All  the  day  long  have  I  held  out  my  hands  to  a  disobedient 
and  gainsaying  people,"  is  directly  prophetic  of  the  crucified 
Christ. 

We  should  err  if  we  emphasized  these  passages  in  such 
a  way  as  to  shut  out  of  view  many  others  in  which  the  text 
of  Scripture  is  rationally  treated.  There  is  no  reason  to  doubt 
that  in  this  period  the  greater  part  of  the  Bible  was  accepted 
in  its  natural  sense.  But  this  refers  especially  to  the  New 
Testament.  The  Gospels  were  studied  as  containing  the 
correct  account  of  the  life  and  death  of  Jesus,  and  the 
ethical  portions  of  the  Old  Testament  were  helpful  for  right 
1—  living.  The  teachers  of  the  Church  were  in  fact  more  mod- 
erate in  the  use  of  allegory  than  were  the  Gnostics.  From 
the  account  of  these  sectaries  which  Irenaeus  gives,  we  see 
how  easy  it  was  by  allegory  to  make  the  Scriptures  teach  heresy 
instead  of  orthodox  doctrine.  Perhaps  it  would  not  be  too 
much  to  say  that  the  Gnostics  gave  the  perfect  example  of 
the  use  of  allegory,  showing  how  to  discover  preconceived 
opinions  in  documents  whose  literal  meaning  was  not  accept- 
able to  the  expositor.  The  Gnostic  system  attempted  to 
combine  elements  drav/n  from  Greek  mythology,  oriental 
speculation,  and  various  mystic  doctrines  which  were  current 
in  the  Roman  world.  Its  leaders  were  impressed  by  the 
Hebrew  and  Christian  Scriptures  and  found  themselves 
obliged  to  take  some  position  with  reference  to  them.  The 
allegorical  method  was  a  tool  which  they  found  ready  to 
their  hand.  We  learn  from  Irenaeus  that  they  interpreted 
the  thirty  years  of  Jesus'  life  as  types  of  the  thirty  Aeons 
posited  by  their  system.  An  alleged  failure  on  the  part  of  the 
eighth  Aeon  was  foreshadowed  by  Judas'  betrayal  of  his 
Master.  The  healing  of  the  woman  who  had  an  issue  of  blood, 
however,  showed  the  recovery  of  this  same  Aeon.    The  thirty 


THE   TRIUMPH  OF  ALLEGORT  49 

are  divided  into  two  groups,  one  of  twelve,  the  other  of 
eighteen  members.  The  first  group  corresponds  to  the  twelve 
years  of  Jesus'  age  when  he  disputed  with  the  doctors  in  the 
temple,  also  to  the  number  of  the  Apostles.  The  second  group 
is  indicated  by  the  eighteen  months  of  Jesus'  sojourn  after 
his  resurrection.  The  chief  Tetrad  is  mentioned  in  the  first 
verse  of  Genesis,  God,  Beginning,  Heaven,  Earth.  It  is  in- 
dictated  by  the  fourth  day,  on  which  the  sun  was  created,  by 
the  fourfold  material  of  which  the  Tabernacle  was  constructed, 
and  by  the  four  rows  of  precious  stones  on  the  Highpriest's 
breastplate — "  and  if  there  are  other  things  in  Scripture  which 
can  be  dragged  into  the  number  four,  they  declare  that  these 
had  their  being  with  reference  to  the  Tetrad."  Similarly  the 
Ogdoad  is  foreshadowed  by  the  eight  persons  saved  in  the 
ark,  by  the  eighth  day,  on  which  circumcision  is  performed, 
and  by  David's  being  the  eighth  son.  This  sort  of  play  on 
numbers  is  already  familiar  and  we  need  not  multiply 
examples. 

What  is  significant  is  that  the  Gnostics  instead  of  rejecting 
the  idea  of  revelation  extended  it  so  as  to  include  their  own 
cosmological  speculations,  as  well  as  the  traditions  and  myths 
of  other  religions.  Allegory  enabled  them  to  overcome  the 
discrepancies  of  these  various  elements,  and  they  applied  it 
thoroughly  to  the  New  Testament.  Jesus  is  the  Redeemer, 
because  he  is  the  supreme  revealer  of  the  mysteries,  knowledge 
of  which  brings  salvation.  On  this  all  the  various  sects 
could  unite.  But  with  reference  to  the  Old  Testament  differ- 
ences soon  arose.  Since  knowledge  brings  salvation,  or  is 
salvation,  the  serpent  which  brought  man  the  knowledge  of 
good  and  evil  must  be  regarded  as  a  benefactor.  He  was  so 
regarded  by  the  Ophites,  who  found  support  for  their  view 
in  the  brazen  serpent  made  by  Moses.  This  sharp  contra- 
diction to  the  Hebrew  view  was  carried  further  by  the  Cain- 
ites,  who  honored  Cain,  Esau,  Korah,  and  others  just  because 
they  opposed  the  Old  Testament  heroes.  Marcion  was  logi- 
cal in  that  he  rejected  the  whole  Old  Testament.  His  ground 
was  objection  to  the  anthropomorphisms,  for  which  he  could 


50    ESSJrS  IN  BIBLICAL  INTERPRETATION 

account  only  by  supposing  that  the  God  revealed  by  the  He- 
brew writers  was  not  the  one  made  known  by  Jesus.  He  even 
believed  that  the  sinners  of  the  Old  Testament  record  were 
delivered  from  Hades  by  Jesus,  whereas  the  Patriarchs  were 
left  in  limbo. 

The  debate  with  the  Gnostics  should  have  taught  the  Fathers 
the  danger  of  allegory.  A  method  which  lent  itself  to  specu- 
lations so  diverse  could  hardly  be  relied  upon  to  demonstrate 
what  the  Christians  had  most  at  heart.  But  it  was  not 
easy  to  discard  the  interpretation  which  many  thinkers  had 
already  attached  to  Old  Testament  passages.  What  Irenaeus 
did  was  to  look  around  for  some  check  to  heretical  exposition. 
This  he  found  in  the  Apostolic  tradition.  His  word  is:  'The 
true  Gnosis  is  the  teaching  of  the  Apostles  and  the  doctrine 
of  the  Church  for  the  whole  world.  The  body  of  Christ  is 
known  in  the  succession  of  Bishops  whom  the  Apostles  gave 
to  the  Church."  This  of  course  made  tradition  and  not  Scrip- 
ture the  authority,  and  it  did  not  diminish  confidence  in 
allegory.  Irenaeus  is  himself  the  proof.  Although  he  val- 
ued the  literal  sense  and  refused  to  allegorize  passages  which 
he  regarded  as  directly  Messianic,  he  does  on  occasion  make 
use  of  the  method.  Elisha's  miracle  with  the  axe,  for  ex- 
ample, is  made  to  show  that  the  sure  word  of  God  which  we 
had  negligently  lost  by  means  of  a  tree,  and  were  not  in  the 
way  of  finding  again,  we  should  receive  again  by  the  dispen- 
sation of  a  tree  (the  cross).  He  believed  that  'the  treasure 
hid  in  a  field,'  of  the  Gospel  parable  meant  Jesus  hidden  in 
the  Old  Testament.  He  found  the  resurrection  of  Christ  pre- 
dicted in  the  Psalm  (Ixxxv:  ii):  "Truth  is  sprung  out  of  the 
earth."  He  compares  the  four  Evangelists  to  the  four  Cheru- 
bim of  the  Old  Testament,  and  finds  the  calling  of  the  gentiles 
announced  in  Noah's  blessing  on  Shem  (Gen.  ix:2  7).  Moses' 
Ethiopian  wife  is  a  type  of  the  gentile  Church,  chosen  by 
Christ;  and  Lot's  daughters  foreshadow  the  two  Churches 
(Jewish  and  gentile).  Lot's  wife,  left  behind  by  her  husband 
and  turned  into  a  pillar  of  salt,  prefigures  the  Church  left 
on  the  earth  by  Jesus  but  still  the  incorruptible  salt  of  man- 


THE   TRIUMPH  OF  ALLEGORY  51 

kind.  It  is  unnecessary  to  multiply  examples/''  Some  of 
those  cited  were  already  current  tradition,  and  as  we  shall 
see  became  stock  examples  throughout  the  whole  history  of 
±eology.  The  underlying  theory  is  that  the  Son  of  God  is 
the  revealer  who  appeared  to  the  Old  Testament  saints,  spoke 
to  Noah,  was  Abraham's  guest,  pronounced  judgment  on 
Sodom,  and  directed  Jacob  on  his  journey.  Christians  are 
the  true  Israel,  the  seed  of  Abraham  by  faith,  as  had  been 
in  fact  affirmed  by  Paul.  To  enter  into  the  history  of  Mes- 
sianic prophecy  as  thus  developed,  helped  no  doubt  by  the 
Greek  rendering  of  the  name  Yahweh  by  Lord,  is  beyond  the 
scope  of  the  present  essay.'" 

Since  every  Christian  writer  gave  some  attention  to  the  Old 
Testament,  and  the  difference  between  them  was  not  one  of 
method,  but  simply  of  the  degree  to  which  the  method  was 
applied,  it  would  be  burdensome  to  attempt  a  complete  sur- 
vey of  their  activity.  Some  attention,  however,  should  be 
given  to  the  school  of  Alexandria,  where  we  may  say  allegory 
came  to  full  flower.  Since  Philo  had  lived  there  and  since  he 
was  regarded  as  almost  a  Christian,  if  not  in  fact  a  disciple 
of  the  Apostles,  it  is  not  surprising  that  his  method  was  there 
thoroughly  carried  out.  Clement  of  Alexandria  frankly 
adopted  it,  and  his  assertion  that  Plato  borrowed  from  Moses 
simply  put  into  Christian  literature  a  belief  already  cher- 
ished in  Jewish  circles.  His  explanation  of  the  reason  for 
the  Mosaic  prohibitions  of  certain  foods  is  borrowed  from 
Aristeas,  turning  it  against  the  Jews,  however,  and  asserting 
that  those  animals  which  chew  the  cud  without  dividing  the 
hoof  signify  the  Jews,  who  have  the  oracles  of  God  in  their 
mouth  but  have  not  the  firm  footing  of  faith.-^  He  claims  for 
his  ecclesiastical  gnosis  that  it  is  the  tradition  of  the  Church, 
and  even  that  it  is  esoteric  teaching  communicated  by  Christ 

19  All  that  I  have  given  are  taken  from  the  treatise  "Against  Heresies" 
translated  in   the   Antenicene   Christian   Library. 

20  The  early  Christian  argument  from  the  Old  Testament  is  discussed  by 
Ungern- Sternberg  in  Theologische  Studien  Theodor  Zahn  zum  lo  Oktober  1908 
dargebracht    (1908). 

21  Stromateis,  VII,  18. 


52    ESSJrS  IN  BIBLICAL  INTERPRETATION 

after  his  resurrection.  He  says  that  for  many  reasons  the 
Scriptures  conceal  their  meaning  "primarily  with  the  aim  of 
making  us  diligent  and  unresting  in  our  study  of  the  words 
of  salvation.  .  .  .  For  this  reason  the  sacred  mysteries  of 
prophecy  are  veiled  in  parables  and  so  reserved  for  chosen 
men,  and  for  those  who  are  selected  for  higher  knowledge." 
On  this  theory  the  way  is  open  for  allegory  and  we  find  its 
application  in  such  assertions  as  that  the  land  of  Egypt  and  the 
people  of  Canaan  are  types  of  passions  and  vices,  and  that 
when  it  is  said:  "The  horse  and  his  rider  hath  He  thrown  into 
the  sea,"  the  real  meaning  is  that  the  impulsive  passions  bring 
man's  nature  into  the  turbulent  waves  of  worldly  disorder." 
The  culmination  of  the  allegorical  method  is  universally 
acknowledged  to  be  found  in  the  works  of  Origen.  Undoubt- 
edly the  impression  made  by  emphasizing  this  element  of  his 
teaching  is  unjust  to  the  greatest  scholar  of  the  ancient 
Church.  Before  dwelling  on  the  allegories  we  should  bear 
in  mind  that,  in  the  words  of  Bishop  Lightfoot,  "in  spite  of 
very  patent  faults  which  it  costs  nothing  to  denounce,  a  very 
considerable  part  of  what  is  valuable  in  subsequent  commen- 
taries, whether  ancient  .or  modern,  is  due  to  him.  A  deep 
thinker,  an  accurate  grammarian,  a  most  laborious  worker 
and  a  most  earnest  Christian,  he  not  only  laid  the  foundation, 
but  to  a  very  great  extent  built  up  the  fabric,  of  Biblical 
interpretation."-^  This  is  of  course  especially  true  of  his 
work  on  the  New  Testament.  In  expounding  the  Old  Testa- 
ment he  was  thoroughly  under  the  influence  of  Philo.  His 
debate  with  the  Gnostics  ^eems  to  have  made  him  cling  even 
more  closely  to  allegory,  if  we  may  trust  the  statement  that 
he  borrowed  from  Heracleon's  thoroughly  allegorical  com- 
mentary on  the  Gospel  of  John,  in  which  for  example  the 
story  of  the  Samaritan  woman  was  interpreted  as  a  drama  of 
the  creation.^*  With  reference  to  the  Old  Testament  he  has 
no  hesitation  in  confessing  that  the  literal  meaning  is  often 

22  TolUnton,  Clement  of  Alexandria  (1914),  H,  pp.  302  and  213. 
-3  Commentary  on  St.  Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Galatians,  p.  375. 
24  E.  de  Faye,  Gnostiques  et  Cnostkhme  (1913),  pp.  57  and  62. 


THE   TRIUMPH  OF  ALLEGORY  53 

obscure,  or  absurd,  or  unworthy  of  a  divine  author.  The 
Jewish  Law  as  law  is  inferior  to  the  laws  ot  other  nations.^' 
We  must  therefore  search  for  an  underlying  spiritual  sense. 
As  the  body  has  little  worth,  when  compared  with  the  spirit, 
so  the  literal  sense  is  inferior  to  the  spiritual.  This  he  finds 
intimated  in  Scripture  itself.  In  the  Levitical  law  we  read 
that  the  meal-offering  may  be  baked  in  an  oven,  or  fried  in 
a  pan,  or  toasted  on  a  plate  (Lev.  11:4-7).  We  cannot  sup- 
pose that  God  cares  for  such  trifles.  What  the  text  intimates 
is  that  the  meal  which  is  offered  is  the  Scripture  itself;  the 
oven  in  which  it  is  prepared  is  the  heart  of  man;  and  since 
the  passage  specifies  an  oven  and  a  plate  and  a  pan,  the  mean- 
ing is  that  Scripture  has  a  three-fold  sense.  Similarly  the 
flaying  of  the  sacrifice  by  the  priest  is  intended  to  teach  us 
that  we  must  strip  off  the  external  husk  of  Scripture  in  order 
to  discover  the  nourishment  which  it  conceals.  Thus  allegory 
is  made  to  justify  the  allegorical  method. 

On  the  Christian  principle  the  divine  and  spiritual  in  the 
Old  Testament  came  to  light  with  the  advent  of  Jesus.  The 
reason  why  the  Jews  do  not  believe  is  because  they  look  only 
at  the  literal  sense  and  do  not  see  the  spiritual  side.  Certain 
stumbling  blocks  in  Scripture  are  a  part  of  the  divine  plan 
"so  that  we  may  not  be  borne  hither  and  thither  by  the  mere 
attractiveness  of  the  style,  and  thus  either  forsake  the  doc- 
trinal part  because  we  receive  no  instruction  worthy  of  God, 
or  else  cleave  to  the  letter  and  learn  nothing  more  divine. "^^ 
Here  is  an  example  of  his  application  of  the  method.  In  Exo- 
dus i:4  we  read:  Joseph  died  and  his  brothers,  and  the  chil- 
dren of  Israel  multiplied  exceedingly.  The  comment  is:  If  Jo- 
seph dies  in  thee,  that  is  if  thou  receive  into  thyself  the  death  of 

25  Contrast  with  this  frank  confession  the  statement  of  a  twentieth  cen- 
tury theologian:  "They  (the  Scriptures)  are  free  from  the  puerilities  and  espe- 
cially from  the  abominations  of  the  world-religions,  because  they  were  written 
by  'holy  men  of  God  who  spake'  not  out  of  their  own  divinely  created  and 
sustained  and  directed  religious  nature  even,  but  as  they  were  moved  by  the 
Holy  Ghost." 

28  Philocalia,  translated  by  Lewis  (1911),  p.  17.  Cf.  the  strong  expressions 
about  the  unreason  of  some  laws  and  the  impossibility  of  obeying  others,  p.  21. 


54    ESSJrS  IN  BIBLICAL  INTERPRETATION 

Christ,  then  the  children  of  Israel,  that  is  the  spiritual  graces, 
will  be  multiplied  in  thee.  Further  confirmation  of  the  theory 
of  a  threefold  sense  is  found  in  Plato's  psychojogy,  according 
to  which  man  consists  of  body,  soul,  and  spirit;  so  Scripture 
has  a  triple  sense,  literal,  moral,  and  spiritual.  This  he  finds 
confirmed  by  Prov.  xxii:2i,  which  in  the  Greek  version  reads: 
Have  I  not  written  unto  thee  triply,  in  counsel  and  knowledge? 
The  homily  on  Genesis  i  discovers  the  waters  above  the 
firmament  to  be  the  spiritual  nature,  the  firmament  itself 
our  bodily  substance,  and  the  waters  below  are  the  sins  and 
vices  which  we  should  separate  from  ourselves.  The  story 
of  Noah  teaches  us  that  when  evils  rise  like  a  flood,  if  one 
turns  and  hears  the  Word  of  God  he  constructs  an  ark  of 
safety  within  himself.  Rebecca  coming  to  the  well  daily 
to  draw  water  and  being  found  there  by  Abraham's  servant, 
thus  to  be  betrothed  to  Isaac,  is  a  lesson  —  we  should  come 
daily  to  the  wells  of  Scripture,  since  Christ  wishes  us  for 
his  bride.  These  examples  are  taken  from  homilies,  and  per- 
haps, like  other  preachers,  the  Father  felt  at  liberty  to  use 
his  imagination  in  a  way  to  edify  his  hearers.  We  have 
found  something  of  the  kind  in  Philo.  Yet  the  genuinely 
exegetical  works  of  Origen  sufficiently  show  his  principles. 
From  the  book  of  Wisdom  he  takes  the  explanation  of  the 
Highpriest's  garments  which  we  have  already  considered,  and 
he  finds  confirmation  of  his  method  in  the  declaration  of 
Isaiah  that  to  his  hearers  all  vision  has  become  like  a  sealed 
book.  This  he  extends  to  cover  all  Scripture,  which  he  finds 
to  be  full  of  riddles  and  parables  and  other  obscurities,  hard 
to  be  understood  by  men  whose  ears  catch  no  more  than 
faint  echoes  of  the  divine  World.^^ 

The  method  did  not  prevail  without  protest,  and  Origen. 
himself  alludes  to  some  objectors.  So  far  as  these  were 
heretics,  he  was  of  course  prejudiced  against  them  from 
the  first.  The  Gnostics  as  we  have  seen  allegorized  the  New 
Testament  in  such  a  way  as  to  do  away  with  the  historic 
ground  for  the  Christian  faith.    On  the  other  hand  by  taking 

2^  Philocalia   (translated  by  Lewis),  p.  31. 


THE   TRIUMPH  OF  ALLEGORY  55 

the  Old  Testament  literally  they  found  reason  for  rejecting 
it,  or  for  reversing  the  Christian  judgment  concerning  its 
heroes  and  villains.  On  both  counts  they  would  be  anti- 
pathetic to  Origen.  The  precarious  nature  of  the  allegorical 
argument  from  the  Old  Testament  was  evident  to  the  author 
of  the  Clementine  Recognitions  also,  which  plainly  assert 
that  there  are  many  things  in  Scripture  which  can  be  drawn 
to  that  sense  which  every  one  has  preconceived  for  himself. 
This,  the  author  affirms,  ought  not  to  be  done,  and  he  bases 
his  argument  on  the  literal  sense,  although  he  allows  a  cer- 
tain force  to  tradition.^^  The  Clementine  documents,  however, 
lie  outside  the  main  stream  of  Christian  literature,  and  this  pro- 
test, if  such  it  was,  had  no  appreciable  effect.  An  interesting 
anticipation  of  later  views  is  found  in  their  statement  that 
animal  sacrifice  was  ordained  by  accommodation;  the  people 
being  accustomed  to  it  in  Egypt  could  not  have  been  induced 
to  break  with  it  at  once.'^  This  indication  that  the  author 
did  not  allegorize  the  Old  Testament  may  be  brought  into 
contrast  with  Origen's  argument  that  if  we  insist  on  the 
literal  sense  we  must  continue  to  sacrifice  animals.  He  is 
therefore  driven  to  the  conclusion  that  while  all  Scripture  has 
the  mystical  sense,  not  all  of  it  has  the  literal  meaning.  This 
he  confirms  by  the  New  Testament  verse  which  speaks  of 
the  water-pots  containing  two  or  three  firkins  apiece,  for  the 
purifying  of  the  Jews.  "The  expression  darkly  intimates 
that  those  who  are  called  Jews  secretly  are  to  be  purified  by 
the  word  of  Scripture,  receiving  sometimes  two  firkins,  that 
is  the  physical  and  spiritual  sense,  sometimes  three  firkins, 
since  some  have  also  the  corporeal,  that  is,  the  literal  sense."^*' 
The  examples  might  be  multiplied  but  enough  has  been  said 
to  verify  Professor  Fullerton's  remark  that  Origen  attempted 
to  give  the  method  of  allegory  scientific  elaboration.  At 
the  same  time  he  too  recognized  the  need  of  some  check  to 
the  imagination   of   the   expositor   and   he   found    this,    as 

28  Recognitions   of   Clement,   X,   42    (Antenicene  Fathers,   Volume   VIII, 
p.  203). 

29  Ibid.,  I,  36  (p.  87).  30  Dg  PrincipHs,  IV,  i,  12. 


56    ESS^JrS   IN   BIBLICAL   INTERPRETJTION 

Irenaeus  did,  in  the  tradition  received  in  the  Church.  The 
spiritual  sense,  he  says,  belongs  to  the  praedicatio  apostolica 
manifeste  tradita.^^  This  loyalty  to  tradition  did  not  prevent 
his  being  regarded  with  suspicion  at  a  later  time. 

Philo,  Origen  and  Plutarch  certainly  attest  the  allegorical 
method  as  something  which  met  the  needs  of  Jew,  Christian, 
and  Greek.  It  was  not  due  to  the  influence  of  any  one  man, 
and  having  established  itself  its  use  in  the  Church  was  almost 
a  matter  of  course.  In  the  Western  Church  the  outstanding 
figure  is  Augustine,  and  his  position  is  made  clear  by  his  own 
statement:  'T  often  rejoiced  to  hear  Ambrose  say:  The  let- 
ter kills,  the  Spirit  gives  life,  for  that  which  in  its  literal 
sense  seemed  absurd  he  expounded  spiritually,  lifting  from  it 
the  veil  of  secrecy."  Ambrose,  as  we  know,  was  a  practical 
administrator  rather  than  a  competent  expounder  of  Scrip- 
ture, and  what  he  gave  was  drawn  from  others.  A  large  num- 
ber of  parallels  have  been  pointed  out  between  his  expositions 
and  those  of  Philo.^-  It  is  not  likely,  however,  that  he  usually 
borrowed  directly  from  the  Jewish  author,  for  he  was  ac- 
quainted with  the  works  of  Clement  and  Origen,  and  is  thought 
to  have  taken  material  from  Hippolytus  and  Basil.  That 
neither  he  nor  Augustine  knew  any  Hebrew  need  not  be  urged 
against  them,  although  it  is  to  us  somewhat  strange  that  the 
greatest  of  the  Fathers  should  have  scruples  against  Jerome's 
more  accurate  version  of  the  Old  Testament  based  on  the 
Hebrew  text.  His  attitude  is  one  more  evidence  of  the 
strength  of  tradition. 

With  reference  to  Scripture,  however,  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciple is  that  whatever  in  the  divine  Word  does  not,  when  taken 
in  the  literal  sense,  contribute  to  morality  of  life  or  rightness 
of  belief,  must  be  taken  allegorically,  since  the  Scriptures, 
being  the  Word  of  God,  can  have  nothing  superfluous  or  un- , 
considered. 

31  De  Principiis,  Preface,  §2. 

32  Siegfried,  Philo  von  Alexandria  als  Ausleger  des  Alien  Testaments 
(187s),  pp.  372-390.  Siegfried's  Book  is  still  the  most  thorough  discussion  of 
Philo's  exegesis  that  we  have. 


THE   TRIUMPH  OF  ALLEGORT  57 

To  Augustine,  as  it  seems,  we  owe  the  first  clear  declaration 
that  each  passage  of  Scripture  has  a  four-fold  sense.  These 
are:  the  literal,  the  allegorical,  the  moral,  and  the  anagogic. 
Thus  the  word  Jerusalem  is  in  the  literal  sense  a  city  in 
Palestine;  allegorically  it  designates  the  Church;  morally  it 
may  mean  the  order  of  civil  society;  whereas  anagogically  it 
points  to  eternal  life.  Yet  it  is  fair  to  say  that  Augustine's 
historical  sense  is  superior  to  that  of  many  of  the  Fathers,  as 
is  shown  by  his  great  work  on  the  City  of  God.  In  it  he  at- 
tempts to  construct  a  history  of  the  world  on  the  basis  of  the 
literal  sense  of  the  Biblical  narrative.  His  two  common- 
wealths—  cities,  according  to  the  Roman  conception  —  are 
the  earthly  and  the  heavenly.  Cain,  the  first  murderer,  is  the 
head  of  the  earthly,  Abel  represents  the  other.  In  the  family 
of  Abraham,  Ishmael,  child  of  the  flesh  and  of  the  bondwoman, 
carries  on  the  one  line,  Isaac,  the  other:  "Fitly,  therefore,  does 
Isaac  typify  the  children  of  grace,  citizens  of  the  free  city 
who  dwell  together  in  everlasting  peace,  in  which  self-love 
and  self-will  have  no  place,  but  a  ministering  love  that  re- 
joices in  the  common  joy  of  all,  of  many  hearts  made  one, 
that  secures  perfect  concord."  This  sentence  shows  as  well  as 
any  that  although  he  desired  to  construct  an  historical  narra- 
tive, the  author  was  yet  dominated  by  a  theory.  And  it  does 
not  surprise  us  that  to  carry  out  the  theory  he  must  have  re- 
course to  allegory.  For  many  parts  of  the  Old  Testament,  if 
interpreted  literally,  would  have  slight  bearing  on  the  theme. 

Examples  are  not  hard  to  find.  The  sons  of  Abraham  by 
Ketura  are  said  to  have  received  gifts  from  their  father.  This 
means  that  the  Jews  and  heretics,  carnally  minded,  receive  the 
ordinary  gifts  of  God's  providence,  whereas  Isaac,  who  is 
heir  of  the  promise,  represents  the  Church.  The  Church 
again  is  really  meant  by  the  verse  which  praises  the  bride  in 
Canticles:  "Thy  teeth  are  like  a  flock  of  sheep  that  are  shorn, 
which  came  up  from  the  washing,  whereof  every  one  bears 
twins  and  none  is  barren  among  them."  Holy  men  are  the 
teeth  of  the  Church,  tearing  men  away  from  their  errors  and 
bringing  them  into  the  body  of  the  Church  with  all  their 


58    ESSJrS  IN  BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

harshness  softened  down.  Where  it  is  said  that  the  elder 
(Esau)  shall  serve  the  younger  (Jacob)  the  Scripture  means 
that  the  Jewish  will  serve  the  gentile  Church.  It  is  an  un- 
worthy solicitude  in  Jacob  when  he  directs  the  disposition  of 
his  dead  body.  The  dead  body  is  therefore  sin,  and  its  burial 
signifies  forgiveness.  The  recurrence  of  certain  words  is 
thought  to  be  significant.  Thus  the  word  'remnants'  in  Gen. 
xlv:7  points  to  Romans  xi:5,  where  we  find  the  'remnant' 
spoken  of.  Hence  there  is  a  mysterium.  In  the  Tabernacle 
the  Holy  of  Holies  means  the  New  Testament,  the  anteroom 
is  the  Old  Testament.^^ 

As  in  other  cases,  we  must  beware  of  the  impression  that 
the  allegory  was  the  leading  thought  of  the  theologian.  The 
intense  earnestness  of  Augustine  in  inculcating  a  Christian 
life  of  love  and  self-denial  must  impress  every  one  who  reads 
his  works.  "Whoever  thinks  that  he  understands  Scripture 
or  any  part  of  it,  but  puts  such  an  interpretation  on  it  as 
does  not  tend  to  build  up  the  two-fold  love,  does  not  under- 
stand it  as  he  ought."  He  even  goes  so  far  as  to  say 
that  the  interpretation  which  builds  us  up  in  love  even  if 
faulty  is  not  pernicious.  Along  with  the  inspiration  of  Scrip- 
ture there  was  the  equally  important  inspiration  of  the 
Church.  This  it  was  which  settled  the  Canon  of  Scripture: 
"With  regard  to  the  canonical  Scripture  we  must  follow  the 
judgment  of  the  greater  number  of  catholic  Churches,  espe- 
cially such  as  have  been  thought  worthy  to  be  the  seat  of 
an  Apostle  and  to  receive  epistles."  Scripture,  therefore, 
asserts  nothing  but  the  catholic  faith  in  regard  to  things 
past,  present,  and  future.  With  this  principle  we  see  how  in- 
evitable was  the  use  of  allegory  in  the  study  of  the  Old 
Testament. 

By  common  consent  Augustine  is  the  most  influential 
thinker  for  Western  Christianity  between  St.  Paul  and  Luther. 
With  his  endorsement  allegory  may  fairly  be  said  to  have 
triumphed. 

33  The  examples  are  taken  from  the  treatise  De  doctrina  Christiana,  and 
the  Questiones  in  Heptateuchum. 


IV 
SCHOLASTICISM  DOMINANT 

THERE  is  no  contradiction  in  speaking  of  allegory  as 
triumphant  and  then  of  scholasticism  as  dominant. 
Allegory  was  the  method  of  exposition  which  had  es- 
tablished itself  in  the  Church's  treatment  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, and  even  to  a  considerable  extent  in  its  treatment  of 
the  New  Testament.  Scholasticism  is  the  system  of  thought 
which  used  allegory  as  its  tool.  In  the  earlier  period  the  ques- 
tion discussed  between  Jews  and  Christians  was  whether 
Jesus  was  the  expected  Messiah.  The  Old  Testament  was 
viewed  as  a  conglomerate  of  predictions,  and  where  they, 
when  literally  construed,  appeared  to  be  something  quite  dif- 
ferent, allegory  was  used  to  make  the  verses  or  the  incidents 
point  forward  to  Christ.  But  by  the  time  of  Augustine  Mes- 
sianism  was  taken  for  granted.  This  Father  had  a  much 
larger  conception,  namely  that  of  a  divinely  established  com- 
monwealth, the  City  of  God,  which  it  was  easy  to  identify 
with  the  Church.  Here  was  a  visible  organization,  having 
the  sacraments  in  its  charge,  and  the  successor  of  St.  Peter 
at  its  head.  It  had  its  sacred  Book  which  Jerome  had  put 
into  intelligible,  almost  classic,  Latin.  The  whole  stream  of 
Christian  tradition  affirmed  that  what  was  patent  in  the 
New  Testament  was  latent  in  the  Old  Testament. 

But  an  organized  body,  such  as  the  Church  had  become, 
was  confronted  with  a  multitude  of  questions  to  which  the 
simple  congregations  of  earlier  days  were  strangers.  These 
problems  became  acute  when  western  society  seemed  to  be 
breaking  up  in  the  storms  of  barbarian  invasion.  Men  clung 
to  the  organization  which  gave  the  promise  of  civil  order,  all 

59 


6o    ESSJrS  IN  BIBLICAL  INTERPRETATION 

the  more  that  it  claimed  divine  sanction.  But  the  New  Testa- 
ment gave  little  light  on  questions  of  discipline,  whereas  the 
Old  Testament  presented  a  picture  of  an  ecclesiastical  com- 
monwealth, completely  organized  from  top  to  bottom.  The 
ideal  presented  in  the  middle  books  of  the  Pentateuch  was 
regarded  as  the  divinely  revealed  pattern  of  what  the  City 
of  God  should  be.  In  fact  the  authors,  or  compilers,  of  that 
code  were  wholly  possessed  by  the  ritual  idea.  According 
to  this  idea  God  was  to  take  up  his  residence  on  earth  in 
some  visible  form  —  His  Shekina,  or  His  Name;  and  the  na- 
tion of  Israel  was  to  be  organized  so  as  to  serve  Him  in  the 
most  perfect  manner.  In  the  strictest  sense  of  the  word 
Israel  was  to  be  a  priestly  nation.  Something  of  a  sacred 
character  will  then  inhere  in  every  member  of  the  community. 
But  this  sacred  character  is  intensified  in  the  servants  of  the 
sanctuary,  one  grade  higher  in  each  of  the  classes  —  Levites, 
Singers,  Priests,  and  Highpriest.  The  necessity  of  preserving 
the  sacred  community  from  contamination  required  discipline, 
and  the  frequent  threat  that  any  transgression  of  the  sacred 
Law  would  be  followed  by  excommunication,  or  death,  showed 
the  severity  visited  upon  sinners  or  scoffers. 

In  the  Church  from  the  time  of  Cyprian,  the  requirement 
of  obedience  to  the  duly  consecrated  bishop  was  emphasized, 
and  the  orders  of  Christian  ministers  were  more  and  more 
assimilated  to  those  of  the  Hebrew  priesthood.  In  the  one  case 
there  were  bishops,  priests,  and  deacons  as  in  the  other  there 
were  Levites,  priests,  and  Highpriest.  The  equation  of  Pope 
and  Highpriest  naturally  followed.  The  enemies  of  the 
Church  were  identified  with  the  Canaanites  and  idolaters,  and 
the  severity  of  Deuteronomy  was  quoted  as  authority  for  their 
extermination.  Even  Augustine  found  in  the  Old  Testament 
justification  for  compulsion  in  matters  of  faith.  On  the  ritual 
side  the  idea  of  sacrifice  was  emphasized.  The  New  Tes- 
tament, to  be  sure,  had  asserted  that  the  one  sacrifice  had 
been  offered  by  Jesus,  and  that  all  believers  had  access  to  the 
Father  through  him.  But  this  one  offering  seemed  too  far 
away  to  be  effective,  and  the  Church,  as  steward  of  the  mys- 


SCHOLASTICISM  DOMINANT  6i 

teries  of  God,  assumed  the  right  of  perpetually  repeating  the 
sacrifice.     The  Presbyter  thus  became  the  sacrificing  priest. 

Economic  questions  force  themselves  upon  the  attention 
of  every  human  society.  They  are  treated  in  detail  in  the 
Pentateuchal  legislation,  and  ample  provision  is  there  made 
for  the  support  of  the  servants  of  the  sanctuary.  A  tithe  of 
the  gross  income  of  the  Israelite  is  to  be  paid  to  the  Levites, 
and  from  it  a  tenth  is  set  apart  for  the  priests.  First-fruits, 
freewill  offerings,  and  certain  fines  which  inure  to  the  benefit 
of  the  priests  are  added.  The  influence  of  this  system  on  the 
development  of  the  Canon  Law  cannot  here  be  traced  in  detail. 
But  we  can  see  how  the  religio-political  system  set  forth 
in  the  Old  Testament  would  be  used  for  the  temporal  advan- 
tage of  the  clergy.  Even  the  vestments  of  the  priesthood  were 
to  a  certain  extent  identified  with  those  of  the  Levitical  system, 
though  the  parallel  is  not  exact.  Undoubtedly  the  Church 
seriously  undertook  to  instruct  the  people  in  faith  and  morals. 
Precedent  would  be  found  in  the  teaching  of  priests  and 
Levites,  alluded  to  in  the  Old  Testament,  and  for  casuistry 
there  was  abundant  material  in  the  Levitical  food  and  police 
regulations.  Where  it  suited  the  Church  to  interpret  literally 
this  method  was  used;  where  this  did  not  meet  the  exigency 
resort  was  had  to  allegory.  The  threefold  or  fourfold  sense 
recognized  by  Augustine  was  now  fully  established. 

The  extent  to  which  exegesis  was  subordinated  to  the  inter- 
est of  the  Church  may  be  illustrated  by  the  rules  of  Tychonius, 
formulated  by  a  Donatist  writer,  but  fully  approved  by  Au- 
gustine. The  specifications  are  as  follows:  Of  the  Lord  and 
his  body  (that  is,  the  church);  of  the  twofold  body  of  the 
Lord  (that  is,  of  true  and  false  Christians);  of  the  promises 
and  the  law  (developing  the  theory  that  all  the  promises  of 
the  Old  Testament  have  the  Christians  in  mind);  of  species 
and  genus  (that  is,  what  is  said  of  particular  cities,  lands,  or 
persons,  in  the  Old  Testament  may  be  applied  in  a  wider 
sense) ;  of  the  times  (opening  the  door  to  all  sorts  of  play  on 
the  numerical  data  of  Scripture);  of  recapitulation  (the 
theory  seems  to  be  that  of  a  double  sense,  so  that  a  predictive 


62    ESSJrS  IN   BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

passage  may  have  its  fulfilment  at  one  time  and  yet  point  for- 
ward to  a  second  and  larger  fulfilment  still  to  come);  of  the 
devil  and  his  body  (that  is,  the  reprobate  or  wicked).^  The 
rules  show  plainly  enough  how  the  literal  and  historical  sense 
is  submerged,  according  to  the  demands  of  ecclesiasticism. 
Not  content  with  the  fourfold  sense  some  expositors  posited 
a  sevenfold,  typified  by  the  seven  seals  of  the  Apocalypse. 
They  are:  i,  Literal  or  historical;  2,  Allegorical;  3,  Combi- 
nation of  both  —  the  example  is  David's  adultery,  which  com- 
bines a  warning  against  that  sin,  with  an  allegorical  condem- 
nation of  the  Jewish  people,  personified  in  Uriah;  4,  Teach- 
ing of  the  Trinity;  5,  Parabolic,  when  the  Scripture  speaks  of 
the  same  thing  in  different  language  in  two  passages  (as  where 
Abimelech  is  named,  though  from  the  parallel  we  find  that 
Achish  is  meant);  6,  Of  the  two  advents  of  the  Saviour;  7, 
In  which  we  are  instructed  by  the  divine  precepts.^  The  arti- 
ficial nature  of  this  classification  is  plain  and  it  only  shows 
the  tendency  of  the  times. 

Devotees  of  the  mystical  sense  find  the  literal  meaning  hum- 
drum, as  is  illustrated  by  theosophy  in  all  its  forms,  including 
the  Jewish  Kabbala,  which  reached  its  highest  development  in 
the  Middle  Age.  Allegorists  are  prone  moreover  to  dwell  on 
the  more  obscure  passages  rather  than  those  which  are  clear. 
This  is  illustrated  by  the  endeavor  to  discover  a  meaning  in 
the  Hebrew  proper  names;  the  alleged  etymologies  would 
reveal  mysteries  hidden  from  the  unlearned.  Amram,  father 
of  Moses,  was  interpreted  Exalted-Father,  and  applied  to 
Christ.  Jochebed,  Moses'  Mother,  was  Grace-oj-God,  and 
signified  the  Church.  From  Christ  and  the  Church  was  born 
Moses  (the  spiritual  law)  and  Aaron  (the  true  priesthood)." 
The  fact  that  Scripture  has  both  plain  and  obscure  passages 
was  defended  as  the  divine  purpose  —  the  plain  passages  for 
the  unlearned,   the   obscure   to   stimulate   the   ingenuity   of 

1  Burkitt,  "Rules  of  Tychonius"  {Texts  and  Studies  edited  by  J.  Arm- 
itage  Robinson,  III,  No.  i,  1894). 

2  Angelomus,  "Enarrationes  in  Libros  Regum,"  Praefatio  (Migne,  Patrolo- 
gi(e  Cursus  Cotnpletiis,  Vol.   115,  col.  24Sf.). 

3  Walafrid  Strabo,  Glossa  Ordinaria  ad  Ex.  vi:  20. 


SCHOLASTICISM  DOMINANT  63 

scholars.  Bede  asks:  What  does  it  profit  us  to  know  that 
Elkana  had  two  wives,  us  who  now  live  the  celibate  life, 
unless  we  can  find  the  allegorical  sense  which  edifies  and 
gives  us  comfort?*  Subordination  of  exegesis  to  the  demand 
for  edification  has  never  been  more  distinctly  set  forth.  Al- 
though not  confined  to  the  Middle  Age,  it  appears  more  prom- 
inently there  than  later.  Tradition  and  dependence  on  the 
Fathers  were  the  order  of  the  day.  This  may  be  illustrated 
by  Isidore  of  Seville,  who  wrote  a  treatise  on  etymologies 
which  is  really  a  sort  of  encyclopedia  of  science  as  it  was  then 
taught.  What  interests  us  now  is  his  treatment  of  the  Old 
Testament,  which  is  thoroughly  allegorical.  In  fact  he  gathers 
up  the  allegories  of  earlier  authors  and  gives  us  a  condensed 
summary  of  what  had  been  done  or  thought  along  that  line. 
From  his  De  Allegoriis  we  may  note  that  Laban  is  a  type 
of  the  Mosaic  Law,  since  Jacob  (Christ)  took  his  two  daugh- 
ters (the  Jewish  and  the  gentile  Church).  Leah,  the  weak- 
eyed,  is  type  of  the  Jews,  Rachel  the  beloved,  type  of  the 
gentile  Church.  Lot  again  is  the  Law,  and  his  two  daughters 
are  Samaria  and  Jerusalem.  Pharaoh,  Sisera,  Goliath,  repre- 
sent the  devil.  Pharaoh's  daughter,  Moses'  foreign  wife, 
the  queen  of  Sheba,  and  Ruth,  typify  the  Church.  Going 
farther  back  we  may  note  that  Adam  is  a  type,  figura,  of 
Christ,  since  he  was  created  on  the  sixth  day,  and  Christ  took 
the  form  of  a  servant  in  the  sixth  world-period  (this  accord- 
ing to  the  chronology  of  the  Greek  version),  that  he  might 
re-create  man  into  the  image  of  God.  Eve,  made  of  the  rib 
of  the  sleeping  Adam,  is  a  type  of  the  Church  created  by  the 
mystery  of  the  blood  and  water  which  flowed  from  the  side 
of  the  dying  Christ.  Abel,  the  good  shepherd,  Seth,  whose 
name  means  Resurrection,  Melchizedek,  who  gives  bread  and 
wine,  Jacob  as  we  have  already  seen,  Job,  Moses,  Jephthah, 
Samson  taking  honey  from  the  lion,  as  Jesus  took  his  converts 
from  the  jaws  of  the  devil,  David  —  all  these  are  types  of 
Christ.  On  the  other  hand,  the  devil  is  represented  among 
others  by  poor  Uriah,  the  Hittite,  whose  wife  (the  Church) 

*  Cited  by   Diestel   from   Bede's  In   Samuelem   Prophetam. 


64    ESSJTS  IN  BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

was  desired  by  David  (Christ).  The  boys  who  mocked 
Elisha  are  the  Jews  who  derided  Christ  and  were  punished 
by  the  two  bears  —  Vespasian  and  Titus.  In  the  Old  Testa- 
ment no  less  than  a  hundred  and  twenty-nine  personages  are 
found  to  be  figures  of  Christ,  the  Church,  the  Jews,  or  Satan. 

This  author  has  also  a  work  entitled  Questiones  in  Vetus 
Testamentum,  from  which  a  specimen  may  be  given.  It  is 
in  the  form  of  a  commentary,  giving  a  few  words  of  the  text 
and  then  the  alleged  exposition,  for  example:  "In  the  Begin- 
ning: —  The  beginning  is  Christ,  as  he  said  to  the  Jews  (John 
viii:25).  In  this  beginning  therefore,  God  made  the  heavens, 
that  is  spiritual  beings,  spirituales,  who  meditate  on  and  seek 
celestial  things,  and  also  carnal  beings  who  have  not  yet 
stripped  off  the  earthly  man.  The  earth  was  empty  and  void; 
—  The  earth  of  our  flesh  was  empty  and  void  before  it  re- 
ceived the  form  of  doctrine.  And  darkness  was  on  the  face 
of  the  deep;  —  because  the  blindness  of  sin  and  the  obscurity 
of  ignorance  covered  our  hearts.  And  the  Spirit  of  God  was 
borne,  ferebatur,  upon  the  waters;  —  The  Spirit  of  God  hovers 
over,  super  ferebatur,  our  dark  and  fluid  heart,  as  over  water, 
in  whom  we  rest,  by  whose  breath  we  are  revived,  and  by 
whose  waves  we  are  washed."  ^  After  this  we  are  not  sur- 
prised to  learn  that  the  live  coal  of  Isaiah  signifies  the  hypo- 
static union  of  two  natures  in  Christ,  and  that  Jacob  disguised 
by  the  skin  of  a  kid  is  a  type  of  Christ  clothed  with  human 
nature. 

Augustine  and  Isidore  were  the  authorities  relied  upon  in 
this  period,  and  the  strength  of  tradition  is  seen  in  the  num- 
ber of  catenae  that  were  compiled.  The  endeavor  was  to  con- 
serve the  thought  of  earlier  expositors.  Even  so  original  a 
thinker  as  Thomas  Aquinas  published  a  Catena  Aurea  on  the 
Gospels,  the  nature  of  which  is  sufficiently  indicated  by  its 
title.  The  interest  of  the  age  was  turned  to  monastic  piety, 
the  sacraments,  and  the  system  of  doctrine  formulated  in  the 
creeds.    The  Old  Testament  was  important  so  far  as  it  could 

^  Isidori  Hispalensis,  Quoestiones  in  Vetus  Testamentum  (Migne,  Vol.  83, 
col.  2ogi.). 


SCHOLASTICISM  DOMINANT  6$ 

be  made  to  confirm  the  accepted  beliefs  on  these  topics.  Hugo 
of  St.  Victor  will  serve  as  an  example.  In  his  chapter  on  the 
allegories  he  cautions  the  student  that  he  must  be  firmly 
established  in  the  literal  sense  before  proceeding  to  the  allego- 
ries which  are  strong  meat.  He  compares  the  literal  sense  to 
the  foundations  of  a  building.  On  this  foundation  must  be 
built  up  the  structure  of  Faith.  The  first  row  of  stones  is 
belief  in  the  Trinity;  next  the  freedom  of  the  will,  then  sin 
and  penalty,  followed  by  the  sacraments  instituted  under  the 
law  of  nature,  and  these  by  the  sacraments  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. The  sixth  row  is  the  incarnation;  the  seventh  the  sac- 
raments of  the  New  Testament;  eighth  is  the  doctrine  of  the 
resurrection.*'  In  order  to  have  a  true  understanding,  there 
must  also  be  humility  of  mind,  docility,  and  retirement  from 
the  world.  In  the  current  evaluation  of  the  monastic  life  it 
is  not  strange  that  the  monk  was  held  to  be  the  best  expounder 
of  Scripture. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  discuss  the  great  intellectual  move- 
ment known  as  Scholasticism.  Our  concern  is  with  its  influ- 
ence on  the  interpretation  of  Scripture,  especially  on  the  in- 
terpretation of  the  Old  Testament.  We  recognize  at  once 
that  the  Bible  was  only  one  of  the  sources  for  philosophy  or 
theology  —  these  two  are  in  fact  one.  The  fundamental 
principle  was  that  the  Church  is  the  visible  Kingdom  of  God. 
Its  authority  was  already  imprinted  on  the  Augustinian  the- 
ology. The  immediate  task  was  to  develop  that  theology  in 
the  light  of  the  Aristotelian  philosophy,  rediscovered  through 
translations  from  the  Arabic.  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  is  the 
one  in  whom  the  system  came  to  full  flov/er,  and  the  extent  of 
his  influence  down  to  the  present  day  is  known  to  every  se- 
rious student  of  history.  His  attitude  towards  Scripture  is 
sufficiently  set  forth  in  the  opening  chapter  of  his  Summa, 
where  he  says:  "So  far  as  the  things  of  the  Old  Law  signify 
the  things  of  the  New  Law,  there  is  the  allegorical  interpre- 
tation. So  far  as  the  things  done  in  Christ,  or  so  far  as  the 
things  which  signify  Christ,  are  types  of  what  we  ought  to 

6  Eruditionis  Didascalicas  Libri  Septem,  VI.  4  (Migne,  Vol.  176,  col.  8o2f.). 


66    ESSJrS  IN  BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

do,  there  is  the  moral  interpretation.  So  far  as  they  signify 
what  relates  to  eternal  glory,  there  is  the  anagogical  inter- 
pretation." And  again:  "The  multiphcity  of  these  interpre- 
tations does  not  produce  ambiguity  or  any  kind  of  equivoca- 
tion." ' 

The  passages  make  clear  that  in  this,  as  in  other  respects, 
the  Saint  adopts  the  current  theory  of  a  threefold  sense, 
although  he  is  more  sober  in  applying  it  than  were  some  of  the 
doctors  of  the  Church,  That  he  was  thoroughly  familiar  with 
the  Bible  in  the  Latin  is  evident;  that  he  knew  no  Hebrew 
and  little  Greek  need  not  be  urged  against  him.  Where  he 
alludes  to  the  Hebrew  he  depends  upon  Jerome,  and  his  idea 
of  a  commentary  as  we  have  seen  is  an  anthology  of  the 
Fathers.  His  own  commentaries  on  Job,  Song  of  Songs,  and 
Psalms  1-50  present  little  that  is  new.  In  truth  his  interest 
was  elsewhere  than  in  the  Old  Testament.  The  Bible  was 
one  of  the  sources  of  his  system,  and  in  the  Bible  the  more 
important  part  was  the  New  Testament.  But  as  he  himself 
says,  the  Church  has  summed  up  the  contents  of  revelation 
in  the  Creed.  His  task  is  to  explain  the  articles  of  the  faith 
according  to  the  current  philosophy.  All  science  is  tributary 
to  theology,  and  theology  confirms  the  Catholic  faith.  The 
need  of  allegory  if  the  Old  Testament  is  made  subservient  to 
this  end  must  be  self-evident.  So  much  is  implied  also  in  the 
declaration  that  the  Church  had  deduced  the  truth  of  the 
creed  from  Scripture,  for  this  means  that  the  exposition  of  the 
Fathers  is  authoritative;  and  that  they  made  abundant  use  of 
allegory  we  have  already  discovered.  The  complete  identity 
of  creed  and  Scripture  has  become  an  axiom. 

No  doubt  the  thought  of  Thomas  appeals  to  the  Christian 
mind.  All  of  us  would  be  glad  to  think  that  theology,  that 
/  is  the  knowledge  of  God  and  His  ways  with  men,  is  really 
the  scientia  scientiarum  to  which  all  philosophy  is  tributary. 
The  endeavor  to  realize  this  ideal  must  command  our  admira- 
tion. It  is  only  when  we  come  to  the  logical  deductions  of 
the  theory  that  we  hesitate.     What  Thomas  means  is  quite 

"^  Summa,  Qu.  I,  i,  10. 


SCHOLASTICISM  DOMINANT  67 

clear.  In  order  to  have  a  right  view  of  the  universe  we  must 
be  persuaded  of  all  the  items  of  the  creed.  These  he  enu- 
merates in  one  of  his  minor  works.  As  they  are  the  several 
articles  of  the  accepted  creed,  they  need  not  be  repeated 
here;  though  we  should  notice  that  he  affirms  the  seven  sacra- 
ments as  equally  important  with  the  articles  of  faith.  In 
connection  with  each  item  he  enumerates  the  various  heresies 
that  have  been  entertained  concerning  that  particular  item. 
This  faith  he  believes  to  have  been  held  by  the  Old  Testa- 
ment saints,  beginning  with  Adam.  Moreover,  it  has  been 
revealed  to  some  among  the  heathen,  Job  being  one  and  the 
Sibyl  another.  In  this  connection  he  relates  a  legend  about 
a  sepulchre  opened  in  the  time  of  Constantine.  In  it  was 
found  the  body  of  a  man  on  whose  breast  was  a  golden  tablet 
with  the  inscription:  "Christus  nascetur  ex  Virgine,  et  ego 
credo  in  eum.  O  Sol,  sub  Irenae  et  Constantini  temporibus 
iterum  me  videbis."^  He  would  have  had  no  hesitation  in 
attributing  divine  inspiration  to  Virgil,  as  was  done  by  some 
of  his  contemporaries.  In  order  to  establish  the  belief,  resprt 
was  had  to  allegory  in  his  case  also.  One  Fulgentius  wrote  a 
book  in  which  he  makes  Virgil  appear  to  him  in  a  dream  and 
reveal  the  hidden  sense  of  his  poems,  beginning  with  the  first 
line  of  the  Mneid  in  which  arma  refers  to  what  is  physical, 
virum  to  what  is  intellectual,  and  primus  to  what  is  ornamental 
and  artistic.  No  less  an  authority  than  John  of  Salisbury 
takes  up  the  thought,  and  declaring  that  under  the  guise  of 
legend  Virgil  expressed  the  truths  of  all  philosophy,  he  traces 
the  successive  steps  in  the  development  of  the  human  soul 
through  the  first  six  books  of  the  Mneid.^ 

Further  discussion  of  the  application  of  this  method  to 
other  literature  does  not  belong  here.  So  far  as  the  Old  Tes- 
tament is  concerned  we  may  say  that  the  doctors  of  the 
Church  were  agreed  in  using  the  three-fold  or  four-fold  sense. 
The  prominent  names  of  Abelard,  Albertus  Magnus,  Duns 
Scotus,  and  Bonaventura  may  be  added  to  those  of  Hugo  of 

^  Cited  by  Werner,  Thomas  von  Aquino    (i8sq),  II,  p.   146. 
^  Comparetti,  Vergil  in  the  Middle  Ages  (1895),  p.  117. 


68    ESSJrS  IN  BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

St.  Victor  and  Thomas  Aquinas  as  adepts  in  this  art.  From 
the  Roman  Catholic  point  of  view  it  is  a  merit  that  these 
writers  buttress  the  doctrinal  system  of  the  Church  with' 
Scripture  texts.  Among  them  Thomas  Aquinas  is  facile  prin- 
ceps  because  of  the  thoroughly  systematic  manner  in  which 
he  has  carried  out  the  theory.  "Pope  Clement  XII  in  a  Bull 
beginning  with  the  words  'By  the  Word  of  God'  makes  men- 
tion of  fourteen  Sovereign  Pontiffs  who  in  solemn  decrees 
have  passed  magnificent  eulogiums  on  the  Angel  of  the 
schools,"  ^°  and  the  number  has  been  added  to  by  Leo  XIII, 
whose  encyclical  of  1879  urged  the  restoration  of  Christian 
philosophy  according  to  the  mind  of  St.  Thomas,  and  who 
pointed  out  that  at  the  Council  of  Trent  "the  Summa  of 
Thomas  Aquinas  lay  open  on  the  altar  with  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures and  the  decrees  of  the  Sovereign  Pontiffs,  that  from  it 
might  be  sought  counsel  and  reasons  and  answers."  ^^  From 
the  modern  point  of  view  it  is  of  course  no  merit  that  Scrip- 
ture should  be  interpreted  according  to  a  doctrinal  system 
assumed  at  the  outset.  Our  purpose  is  not  to  praise  nor  to 
blame,  but  to  understand.  That  Thomas  was  thoroughly 
conscientious  in  defending  the  system  of  doctrine  which  was 
to  him  the  most  important  thing  in  the  world,  all  must  recog- 
nize. And  if  this  system  of  doctrine  is  the  most  important 
thing  in  the  world,  heresy  is  the  thing  most  to  be  dreaded. 
St.  Thomas  indicates  the  state  of  mind  when  in  the  introduc- 
tion to  his  commentary  on  the  Psalms  he  mentions  the  con- 
demnation of  Theodore  of  Mopsuestia  by  the  fifth  General 
Council.  Theodore  had  offended  by  insisting  on  the  literal 
interpretation  of  the  Messianic  Psalms,  and  this  was  the 
heresy  which  Thomas  warned  against.  In  the  dedicatory 
epistle  prefaced  to  the  Catena  Aurea,  he  informs  Pope  Urban 
that  he  intends  to  give  not  only  the  literal  sense  of  the  Gospel 
but  also  the  mystical  sense,  also  to  destroy  error  and  to  con- 

1°  Vaughan,  Life  and  Labors  of  St.  Thomas  of  Aquin   (1890),  p.  340. 

1^  Cited  from  the  English  translation  prefixed  to  the  Summa  Theologica 
of  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  literally  translated  by  the  Fathers  of  the  English  Do- 
minican Province,  Volume  I  (1911). 


SCHOLASTICISM  DOMINANT  69 

firm  the  Catholic  faith."    If  this  was  the  common  opinion  we 
can  understand  the  conclusion  which  the  Church  drew  as  to  the 
need  of  suppressing  heresy  by  the  strong  arm  of  the  civil  power. 
Enough  has  now  been  said  to  show  in  what  sense  we  may 
speak  of  scholasticism  as  dominant.     In  the  Roman  Church 
the  authors  we  have  adduced  are  authoritative.     When  the^ 
Council  of  Trent  affirmed  the  true  doctrine  to  be  derived 
from  tradition  as  well  as  Scripture,  and  that  Scripture  itself, 
is  to  be  accepted  in  the  sense  in  which  the  Church  interprets 
it,  the  meaning  is  that  these  mediaeval  authors  have  given 
IQie  true  exposition  of  the  Bible.     Allegory,  therefore,  is  not 
only  authorized,  but  we  may  say  enjoined.    The  theory  was         ^ 
temporarily  shaken,  though  not  overthrown,  by  the  revival 
of  learning,  for  the  attention  paid  to  ancient  literature  in  its_ 
natural  sense  made  the  artificial  method  of  treating  the  Scrip- 
tures ridiculous.     The  attitude  of  the  Humanists  may  be 
judged  by  the  Epistoloe  Obscurorum  Virorum,  in  one  of  which 
Magister  Andreas  Delitzsch  is  satirized  as  the  man  who  lec- 
tures on  the  Metamorphoses  of  Ovid  "and  explains  all  the. 
fables  allegorically  and  literally."     Details  are  given  in  an- 
other letter  showing  how  the  same  book  can  be  expounded 
quadruply,  that  is  naturally,  historically,  literally,  and  spiritu- 
ally.    Thus  the  nine  Muses  allegorically  signify  the  seven 
choirs  of  angels;  Diana  is  the  Virgin  Mary,  who  goes  hither  1 
and   thither  accompanied  by  her  virgin   nymphs;    Cadmus  | 
seeking  for  his  sister  is  Christ  seeking  the  soul  of  man,  and 
he  builds  a  city,  that  is  the  Church.     "Not  without  cause  is 
it  written  that  Bacchus  was  twice  born,  for  by  him  is  de- 
noted Christ,  who  was  born  once  before  all  worlds  and  a  sec- 
ond time  humanly  and  carnally.     Furthermore,  the  story  of 
Pyramus  and  Thisbe  is  to  be  expounded  allegorically  and 
spiritually,  thus:  Pyramus  signifies  the  Son  of  God,  and  Thisbe 
the  soul  of  man  which  Christ  loves,  and  concerning  which  it  is 
written  in  the  Gospel:    'a  sword  shall  pierce  thine  own  soul'; 
for  in  like  manner  Thisbe  slew  herself  with  her  lover's  sword."  ^^ 

12  Divi  Thomce  Aquinatis  Opera  (i77S),  Tomus  IV,  p.  2. 

13  Epistola  XXVIII. 


r 


70    ESSy^rS  IN  BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

Although,  as  we  shall  see,  Luther  protested  against  the  use 
of  allegory,  and  Calvin  even  more  emphatically,  yet  the 
method  is  so  attractive  to  those  who  seek  for  mysteries  in  a 
sacred  Book  that  its  influence  can  be  traced  outside  the 
bounds  of  the  Catholic  Church.  Many  Protestant  theologians 
allow  a  typology  which  is  not  far  removed  from  that  of  the 
Schoolmen.  The  most  striking  example  is  the  exposition 
of  the  Song  of  Songs,  for  even  to  the  present  day  this  book 
is  described  as  an  allegory  of  the  love  of  Christ  and  his 
Church.  Whether  this  collection  of  love  songs  found  its 
way  into  the  Canon  because  it  was  interpreted  allegorically, 
is  not  quite  clear.  In  view  of  the  prophetic  representation  of 
the  relation  between  Yahweh  and  Israel  under  the  figure  of  a 
marriage,  this  is  not  improbable,  and  both  Targum  and  Mid- 
rash  assume  that  the  book  is  an  allegory.  From  Origen  down 
to  the  editors  of  our  Authorized  Version,  the  Christian  inter- 
pretation has  seen  in  the  bridegroom  the  t3TDe  of  Christ,  and 
in  the  bride  either  the  Church  or  the  individual  soul.  That 
St.  Bernard  preached  eighty-six  sermons  on  texts  from  this 
book  is  a  matter  of  common  knowledge.  That  religious  affec- 
tion often  uses  the  language  of  human  affection  is  proved 
here  again  as  it  is  by  the  whole  history  of  mysticism.  The 
matter  is  of  interest  in  connection  with  our  present  discussion 
only  because  it  shows  the  measures  which  the  believer  finds 
necessary  in  adapting  a  changed  religious  experience  to  a 
Book  which  took  form  in  an  earlier  time.  The  sufficiency  of 
Scripture  was  hotly  debated  between  Protestants  and  Cath- 
olics at  a  later  date.  A  curious  monument  of  the  controversy 
f  is  the  pamphlet  of  Francis  Hare  on  "the  difficulties  and  dis- 
couragements which  attend  the  study  of  the  Scriptures  in  the 
way  of  private  judgment."  ^*  Whether  this  essay  was  pub- 
,  lished  in  good  faith  is  still  a  question.  It  certainly  gives  the 
Catholic  argument  though  it  was  written  by  an  Anglican 
bishop,  for  it  roundly  asserts  that  "the  orthodox  faith  does  not 
depend  upon  the  Scriptures  considered  absolutely  in  them- 
usely^s,  but  as  explained  by  Catholick  Tradition."     A  more 

^*  First  published  in  1714;  eighth  edition  in  1721. 


SCHOLASTICISM  DOMINANT  71 

modern  statement  is  that  of  Newman  that  the  doctrines  of 
the  Church  "have  never  been  learned  merely  from  Scrip- 
ture," ^^  and  the  "Tracts  for  the  Times"  defend  the  Catholic 
interpretation  at  length. 

As  a  supplement  to  this  discussion,  we  may  notice  briefly 
some  modern  instances.  One  appears  where  we  should  least 
look  for  it,  that  is,  in  India.  Among  the  myths  of  the  Hindoos 
none  is  less  acceptable  to  the  western  mind  than  that  of 
Krishna.  The  career  of  this  incarnation  of  Vishnu  is  a  long 
series  of  murders,  thefts,  and  adulteries.  The  god  is  the 
impersonation  of  unbridled  sexual  passion,  having  180,000 
wives  and  indulging  himself  immoderately  with  the  women 
or  goddesses  whom  he  meets.  Yet  modern  Hindooism  is  able 
to  accept  and  worship  Krishna  and  he  has  many  warm  ad- 
herents among  educated  Hindoos.  "Many  regard  him  as  the 
Supreme  Being  who  in  his  wondrous  condescension  mingled 
in  the  affairs  of  human  life,  and  naturally  their  one  endeavor 
is  to  explain  away  and  account  for  the  stories  of  sensuality 
which  stain  the  fair  name  of  their  deity."  ^®  This  they  do 
in  the  manner  now  familiar  to  us;  the  loves  of  Krishna  and 
the  milkmaids  are  represented  as  allegories  of  divine  love. 
It  is  unnecessary  to  give  details.  The  case  only  shows  that 
we  are  dealing  with  a  phenomenon  common  to  more  than  one 
reHgion.  It  is  even  applied  in  justification  of  the  recital  of  the 
Creed,  as  though  the  mystical  interpretation,  which  really 
sublimates  the  historical  statements  of  the  ancient  document 
into  symbols  of  the  believer's  inner  experiences,  were  con- 
sistent with  the  intention  of  the  Church.  What  is  meant  may 
be  shown  by  a  single  paragraph:  "Born  of  the  Virgin  Mary 
means  that  the  dweller  in  the  kingdom  must  be  born  of  water 
as  well  as  of  the  Spirit,  not  of  the  Spirit  alone  nor  of  the  soul 
alone  for  Spirit  is  the  life,  soul  supplies  the  form  and  body, 
and  under  this  present  dispensation  all  things  are  double,  one 
against  another,  and  the  end  will  come  when  the  man  is  as 

15  The  Arians  of  the  Fourth  Century,  p.  29.  There  also  we  find  a  defence 
of  the  allegorical  method  (p.  33 f.). 

16  Martin,  The  Gods  of  India  (1914),  p.  140. 


72    ESSJrS  IN   BIBLICAL  INTERPRETATION 

the  woman  and  the  woman  as  the  man,  neither  male  nor  fe- 
male." A  little  later  in  the  same  chapter  we  read:  "When  the 
soul,  figured  as  Eve,  listens  to  the  seductions  of  sense,  that  is 
of  life  seeking  to  act  apart  from  the  whole,  she  becomes  from 
generate  degenerate,  and  must  become  regenerate,  that  is  she 
must  become  purified  or  single-pointed  and  then  perfect  her 
purification  by  giving  birth  to  the  Christ  through  the  Spirit, 
which  is  the  true  husband.  Eve  must  become  Mary,  and  her 
Son  the  St.  George  bruising  the  serpent's  head.  The  soul 
is  first  the  daughter,  then  the  spouse,  then  the  Mother  of 
God." '' 

The  book  from  which  the  above  is  quoted  reproduces  also 
the  elaborate  symbolism  of  numbers  which  goes  back  to 
Pythagoras  or  earlier,  another  evidence,  if  any  were  needed, 
of  the  tendency  we  have  been  discussing.  So  far  as  our  in- 
vestigation has  gone,  we  have  found  the  art  of  exegesis  to  con- 
sist in  reading  into  the  sacred  text  that  which  the  expositor 
wishes  to  find  there. 

1''  W.  F.  Cobb,  Mysticism  and  the  Creed  (1914). 


LUTHER'S   APPEAL 

IT  HAS  become  a  commonplace  of  Church  History  that 
there  were  Reformers  before  the  Reformation.  The  fact 
is  that  a  highly  organized  community,  such  as  the  Roman 
Church  had  become,  will  always  have  critics  among  its  more 
thoughtful  subjects.  Equally  true  is  it  that  a  complicated 
system  of  doctrine  like  that  which  had  official  sanction  in  the 
Middle  Age  will  provoke  opposition  in  some  minds.  The 
crusade  against  the  Albigenses  shows  how  formidable  opposi- 
tion to  the  received  social  order  and  to  the  dominant  theology 
might  become.  As  early  as  the  twelfth  century  Joachim  of 
Floris  had  advanced  the  theory  that  the  Pope  is  Antichrist. 
Whatever  knowledge  of  Scripture  there  was  must  have  sug- 
gested to  pious  believers  that  the  Gospel  was  something  dif- 
ferent from  the  theology  of  the  Schoolmen.  The  revival  of 
learning,  as  we  have  seen,  gave  men  a  new  sense  of  literary, 
values,  and  while  Scripture  was  sometimes  undervalued  in 
comparison  with  the  classic  authors  of  Greece  and  Rome  tjie 
importance  of  going  back  to  the  sources  (in  this  case  the  He- 
brew text  of  the  Old  Testament)  was  appreciated.  Among 
the  Jews  there  had  come  a  reaction  against  the  refinements  of. 
Rabbinical  exegesis,  and  a  more  sober  method  of  studying 
the  text.  Rashi  became  the  standard  commentator  just  be- 
cause  iie  gave  attention  to  the  literal  meaning  of  the  Bible. 
His  influence  on  Christian  exegesis  has  been  considerable, 
mediated  as  it  has  been  by  Nicholas  of  Lyra. 

That  Nicholas  had  no  intention  of  being  an  innovator  is 
evident  from  his  affirmation  of  the  fourfold  sense,  and  from 
his  expressed  willingness  to  submit  his  conclusions  to  the 

73 


74    ESSJrS  IN  BIBLICAL  INTERPRETATION 

judgment  of  the  Church.  But  he  does  emphasize  the  literal 
sense,  and  in  this  almost  slavishly  follows  Rashi.  Even  when 
Christian  exposition  differs  from  that  of  the  Jews,  he  often 
gives  the  preference  to  the  latter.  His  influence  on  Luther 
has  become  proverbial.  Increasing  interest  in  the  Bible  in 
the  fourteenth  century  is  indicated  by  Wycliffe's  translation. 
Wycliffe  indeed  is  the  most  important  of  Luther's  forerun- 
ners, because  of  his  desire  to  give  the  people  the  Bible  in 
their  own  language.  His  emphasis  was  laid  on  the  literal  sense, 
and  he  warned  against  reading  into  the  text  that  which  the 
Holy  Spirit  does  not  mean.  In  Germany  also  there  were 
editions  in  the  vernacular  before  Luther's  epoch-making  work. 
Scholarly  interest  in  the  original  text  is  indicated  by  the  Com- 
plutensian  Polyglot  published  just  before  Luther  posted  his 
Theses.  Reuchlin's  efforts  to  promote  the  study  of  Hebrew 
had  given  rise  to  an  animated  controversy  in  which  the  igno- 
rance of  the  monkish  agitators  was  ridiculed  by  men  of  learn- 
ing. The  careful  observer  must  have  seen  signs  of  a  new  spirit 
in  the  universities  and,  in  some  of  them  at  least,  a  revolt  from 
the  current  scholasticism.  Luther's  hatred  of  Aristotle  was 
probably  not  an  isolated  phenomenon.  On  the  economic  side 
the  unrest  was  marked,  and  contributed  to  the  desire  for  a 
change. 

In  Luther  we  can  trace  the  gradual  change  which  went  on 
in  the  man  trained  in  the  scholastic  theology,  one  who  would 
like  to  have  remained  a  loyal  son  of  the  Church,  but  who  was 
driven  to  take  one  step  after  another  away  from  tradition  and 
into  opposition  to  the  organization  with  which  he  had  been  so 
closely  connected.  That  he  was  trained  in  the  scholastic 
theology  is  indicated  by  the  fact  that  when  first  appointed 
to  his  professorship  he  was  expected  to  lecture  on  Aristotle. 
Against  this,  however,  he  soon  revolted,  and  then  began  his 
exposition  of  the  Bible.  His  theology  was  still  that  which  he 
had  learned,  and  he  was  moved  to  anger  when  Eck  accused 
him  of  being  a  heretic.  His  later  attitude  towards  Aristotle 
is  indicated  by  his  declaration  that  there  is  more  wisdom  in 
one  verse  of  the  Psalms  than  Aristotle  would  express  if  he 


LUTHER'S  APPEAL  75 

had  written  a  thousand  books  of  Metaphysics.  And  later: 
"In  scholasticism  I  learned  nothing  of  what  sin,  righteousness, 
jjace  and  Christjan  life  are.  I  lost  Christ  there,  but  found 
him  in  Paul."  Here  we  have  the  criterion  which  he  applied 
to  AristofliTand  the  Schoolmen  not  only,  but  to  the  Bible 
itself.  The  Fathers  also  lost  their  standing  with  him  as  in- 
fallible teachers,  although  he  always  valued  Augustine.  Here 
also  we  understand  the  motive,  Luther  was  primarily  a  re- 
ligious genius.  He  went  through  an  experience  similar  to  that 
of  St.  Paul,  and  among  the  Fathers  none  so  nearly  reproduced 
that  experience  as  did  Augustine.  In  his  lectures  he  first 
gave  a  course  on  the  Psalms  and  next  took  the  Epistle  to  the 
Romans,  the  two  books  in  which  he  found  his  religion  most 
fully  expressed. 

It  must  be  remembered  also  that  he  was  pastor  and  preacher 
as  well  as  professor,  and  it  was  here  that  the  issue  was  joined. 
The  sale  of  indulgences  gave  his  confessants  a  false  confi- 
dence, and  thus  cut  at  the  roots  of  a  real  religious  experience. 
The  famous  theses  were  posted  in  order  that  by  an  academic 
discussion  men's  ideas  concerning  sin,  repentance,  and  the 
power  of  the  Church  might  be  clarified.  And  it  is  noticeable 
that  the  first  one  of  the  series  goes  back  to  the  text  of  the  Gos- 
pels in  their  literal  meaning,  as  distinguished  from  the  in- 
terpretation which  the  Church  authorities  were  putting  upon 
the  words.  It  reads:  When  our  Lord  and  Master  Jesus  Christ 
says  'act  penitence'  {penitentiam  agite,  according  to  the  Latin 
version)  he  means  that  all  the  life  of  the  faithful  should  be 
penitent.  And  the  next  thesis  carries  out  the  thought:  This 
word  cannot  be  understood  of  sacramental  penance,  that  is  of 
the  confession  and  satisfaction  which  are  secured  by  the  min- 
istry of  the  priest.  We  see  that  the  official  interpretation  of 
the  Church,  which  found  in  the  Gospel  word  'repent'  author- 
ization for  its  demand  of  penance  under  the  direction  of  the 
priest,  is  distinctly  disavowed,  because  the  text  of  the  Gospel, 
taken  in  its  literal  sense,  does  not  mean  what  the  Church 
affirms.  Almost  more  distinct  is  the  declaration:  Every 
truly  penitent  (compunctus)  Christian  has  remission  of  pun- 


76    ESSJrS  IN  BIBLICAL   INTERPRETJTION 

ishment  and  guilt  without  letters  of  indulgence.  And  the 
ecclesiastical  theory  of  a  treasury  of  merits  upon  which  the 
Pope  could  draw  in  favor  of  the  purchaser  of  indulgences  is 
contradicted  in  the  sentence:  The  true  treasure  of  the  Church 
is  the  Holy  Gospel  of  the  glory  and  the  grace  of  God. 

While  an  academic  debate  on  abstract  questions  of  doctrine 
might  have  been  allowed  to  pass  without  hostile  criticism,  an 
attack  upon  the  traffic  in  indulgences  was  a  different  matter. 
Tetzel  saw  the  danger  to  his  trade,  and  scented  heresy  at 
once.  His  claim  was  that  the  Pope  who  had  authorized  the 
indulgences  had  a  right  to  interpret  Scripture,  and  to  decide 
questions  of  faith.  The  principle  of  leading  Churchmen  was 
that  the  customs  of  the  Church  were  divine  truth  because  they 

f'  were  the  customs  of  the  Church.  "If  a  tradition,  a  text  of 
Scripture  or  a  dogmatic  affirmation  was  inconvenient,  the 
Church,  that  is  Rome,  had  the  right  of  interpreting."  ^  Where 
the  sources  of  the  Papal  income  were  endangered  it  is  easy 
to  see  what  line  the  interpretation  would  take.  The  Reformer, 
however,  did  not  realize  the  full  meaning  of  the  step  he  had 
taken  until  the  debate  with  Eck.  It  was  the  determination 
of  his  opponent  there  to  prove  him  a  heretic  —  to  Luther's 
indignation,  as  has  been  said.  But  the  debate  showed  that 
if  the  Pope  or  the  Canon  Law,  or  the  Councils,  or  even  the 
Fathers  were  accepted  as  infallible  authorities,  Luther  was  in 
danger  of  the  judgment.  His  appeal  must  therefore  be  to  the 
Scriptures,  and  this  came  to  him  with  full  force  at  Worms. 
Reflecting  on  his  experiences  at  the  Diet,  he  began  at  once 
his  translation  of  the  Bible.  It  was  his  appeal  from  the 
Church  authorities  to  the  common  people.  It  is  sometimes 
affirmed  that  he  gave  the  Bible  to  his  people,  and  the  sen- 
tence is  understood  as  if  the  Book  had  not  been  accessible  to 

f'  them  before.  But  as  we  have  seen,  there  were  earlier  versions 
in  German  and  the  printing  press  had  sent  forth  several  edi- 
tions of  the  Latin.  The  truth  is  that  the  Bible  had  been  known 
for  the  most  part  in  the  form  in  which  the  Church  authorities 
had  presented  it  —  overlaid  with  legendary  and  allegorical 

1  Hamack,  Lehrbuch  der  Dogtnengeschichte,  III   (1910),  p.  665. 


LUTHER'S  APPEAL  77 

material.  Luther's  own  statement  is  that  so  many  legends 
of  the  saints,  passionals,  edifying  examples,  and  story-Bibles, 
had  been  circulated  that  the  Psalter  had  been  quite  "thrown 
under  the  bench."  But  the  Psalms  are  superior  to  the  best  of 
the  legends,  no  matter  how  many  they  may  be.  What  the 
legends  tell  us  is  what  the  saints  have  done;  but  the  Psalms 
show  us  how  they  talked  with  God  and  prayed  —  so  that  the 
other  examples  appear  as  mere  dumb  saints,  but  those  of 
the  Psalms  right  active  and  living.  "There  you  see  into  the 
heart  of  the  saints,  as  into  a  beautiful,  pleasant  garden,  nay 
into  heaven,  what  beautiful  flowers  spring  up  out  of  all  sorts 
of  joyful  thoughts  of  God  on  account  of  his  goodness."  - 
That  the  man  who  could  write  thus  knew  how  to  reach  the 
hearts  of  the  people  is  evident,  and  we  are  not  surprised  to 
learn  that  his  New  Testament  went  through  twenty-two  edi- 
tions in  Wittenberg  alone  during  his  lifetime,  and  that  in 
the  same  period  there  were  eleven  editions  of  the  complete 
Bible. 

Like  many  another  genius,  Luther  was  little  concerned  about 
consistency,  and  a  little  reflection  will  show  why  different 
and  even  apparently  contradictory  utterances  can  be  cited 
from  his  numerous  works.  The  most  of  those  works  were 
called  out  by  special  emergencies,  each  forced  from  him  by 
a  new  crisis.  He  says  himself  that  whether  he  wills  it  or  not 
he  is  compelled  to  learn  something  new  every  day  "since  so 
many  eminent  men  press  upon  me  as  though  for  a  wager,  and 
give  me  something  to  do."  In  this  connection  he  regrets  his 
earlier  position  concerning  indulgences  because  at  that  time 
he  judged  too  mildly.  When  Prierias  took  up  the  defence 
"I  discovered  that  indulgences  are  a  mere  deception  of  the 
Roman  flatterers  by  which  they  take  away  the  people's  money 
and  at  the  same  time  their  faith  in  God."  Then  came  Eck 
and  Emser,  and  began  to  instruct  him  about  the  Pope  —  "and 
not  to  be  ungrateful  to  such  learned  men,  let  me  confess  that 
their  writings  brought  me  forward.  For  though  I  denied  that 
the  Papacy  had  divine  right,  yet  I  was  willing  to  confess  its 

2  Vorrede  zum  Psalter  (1528). 


r 


78     ESSJrS  IN  BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

human  right;  but  when  I  read  the  hairsplitting  refinements 
of  these  coxcombs  with  which  they  support  their  idol^  I  realize 
that  the  Papacy  is  the  kingdom  of  Babylon  and  the  power 
of  Nimrod  the  mighty  hunter."  ^  Later  he  might  have  in- 
cluded among  his  teachers  the  Anabaptists  who  compelled 
him  to  face  another  class  of  problems. 

Our  interest  is  in  the  Reformer's  attitude  towards  the 
Bible,  and  we  have  seen  how  he  was  driven  back  to  it  as  the 
infallible  source  of  faith.  His  final  position  was  that  the 
Bible  is  superior  not  only  to  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul,  but  even 
to  all  angels  and  to  the  humanity  of  Christ  himself,  because 
he  declares  that  the  word  he  speaks  is  not  his  own  but  His 
that  sent  him.  But  the  question  of  interpreting  the  Word  still 
confronted  the  inquirer.  Or  even  more  fundamental  was  the 
question  of  the  Canon:  What  books  are  to  be  recognized  as 
the  Word  of  God?  To  this  Luther's  reply  is  well  known. 
Starting  from  his  religious  experiences  he  gave  the  rule: 
What  urges  Christ  (was  Christum  treibt)  is  Scripture,  though 
written  by  a  Judas;  what  does  not  stand  this  test  is  not  Scrip- 
ture though  written  by  an  Apostle.  From  this  point  of  view 
it  must  be  clear  that  not  all  parts  of  the  Bible  are  of  equal 
value.  The  New  Testament  is  the  primary  source,  and  in  the 
New  Testament  the  Epistles  of  Paul  and  the  Gospel  of  John 
have  the  preeminence.  The  oft  quoted  characterization  of 
the  Epistle  of  James  is  sufficient  evidence  of  the  freedom  with 
which  he  approached  what  we  should  call  questions  of  criti- 
cism.   What  about  the  Old  Testament? 

Here  we  note  first  of  all  that  in  principle  Luther  rejected 
the  allegorical  method.  In  his  introduction  to  his  translation 
he  says  that  some  seek  a  spiritual  sense  in  the  Old  Testament 
as  Origen,  Jerome  and  other  prominent  men  have  done.  This  he 
does  not  approve,  but  cites  Jesus'  word:  Search  the  Scriptures 
for  they  are  they  which  testify  of  me,  and  uses  this  as  the  touch- 
stone for  the  reader.  This  he  develops  more  at  length,  say- 
ing: "If  you  will  interpret  well  and  securely,  take  Christ  with 
you,  for  he  is  the  man  whom  everything  concerns."    Whether 

3  Von  der  Babylonischen   Gefangenschajt  der  Kirche    (preface). 


LUTHER'S  APPEAL  79 

the  rule  could  be  applied  without  some  use  of  allegory  we  may 
doubt,  but  there  is  no  doubt  of  Luther's  intention.  He  says 
for  example,  that  allegory  is  a  dangerous  thing,  though  the 
words  read  so  smoothly,  for  there  is  nothing  behind  them.  It 
may  do  for  the  preachers  who  have  not  studied  much,  and  who 
do  not  know  how  to  expound  the  history  and  the  text  —  they 
resort  to  allegory  by  which  nothing  definite  is  taught.  In 
his  own  commentaries  he  follows  Nicholas  of  Lyra  closely, 
and  commends  him  because  he  does  not  allegorize  but  holds 
to  the  history,  that  is  the  literal  sense.  On  the  other  hand, 
he  criticizes  this  writer  for  too  close  dependence  on  the  Jewish 
exegetes.  In  practice,  moreover,  he  is  not  able  to  avoid 
allegory  altogether  —  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  gives  him 
the  example,  and  to  that  extent  authorization.  But  the  cases 
are  not  very  numerous.  Correct  principles  of  Bible  study  are 
set  forth  in  the  preface  to  his  translation  of  Isaiah,  where  he 
urges  the  reader  to  study  the  history  recorded  in  the  books 
of  Kings  in  order  to  understand  the  situation  in  which  the 
prophet  uttered  his  discourses.  It  is  necessary,  he  says,  to 
know  how  it  stands  in  the  land,  what  events  transpired,  what 
the  people  thought,  what  were  the  relations  which  they  sus- 
tained to  their  neighbors,  friends  or  foes,  especially  their 
attitude  towards  their  God  and  His  prophets. 

That  the  Reformer  had  his  limitations  is  true,  but  it  is  not 
too  much  to  say  that  he  opened  the  way  to  a  better  under- 
standing of  the  Bible.  A  really  historical  treatment  must 
come  later.  But  the  germ  of  such  treatment  may  be  discov- 
ered in  Luther's  affirmation  of  the  difference  between  the  two 
Testaments  which  he  defines  as  the  difference  between  Law 
and  Gospel.  Here  the  Apostle  Paul  had  shown  the  way,  for 
according  to  him  the  function  of  the  Old  Testament  (here, 
as  among  the  Jews  generally,  the  Pentateuch  was  the  im- 
portant part)  was  to  show  the  real  nature  of  sin.  This  was 
the  way  in  which  it  prepared  for  the  Gospel,  the  message  of 
deliverance.  The  theory  fell  in  with  Luther's  own  experience, 
for  in  the  cloister  his  struggle  against  fleshly  desire  had  con- 
vinced him  of  the  impotence  of  legalism,  whereas  the  revela- 


V 


8o    ESSJrS  IN  BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

tion  of  grace  in  Christ  gave  the  sense  of  forgiveness  and  led 
to  newness  of  Hfe.  The  application  of  the  theory  may  be  read  in 
his  introduction  to  the  Pentateuch  where  he  points  out  that  the 
book  of  Genesis  gives  us  fine  examples  of  faith,  but  that 
Moses  is  the  instrument  for  promulgating  the  Law.  The  mul- 
titudinous commands  in  the  Levitical  Code  serve  to  burden  the 
conscience  with  a  multitude  of  sins,  and  convince  the  man 
of  his  impotence  to  all  good. 

The  Old  Testament  therefore  was  viewed  in  two  aspects. 
It  contained  the  Messianic  prophecies,  which  were  still  inter- 
preted according  to  the  tradition  of  the  Church,  and  it  con- 
tained the  Law  which  was  intended  to  convince  men  of  sin. 
Melanchthon's  Loci,  which  became  the  standard  theological 
textbook  for  the  new  reformed  Christian  community,  was 
based  on  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  and  treated  the  Old  Tes- 
tament from  this  double  point  of  view.  The  dawn  of  an 
historical  understanding  may  be  found  in  this  instrument, 
especially  in  the  Reformer's  insisting  on  the  original  text  as 
against  the  Roman  exaltation  of  the  Latin  version.  The 
reaction  against  this  version  extended  to  Jerome,  its  author, 
whom  Luther  criticizes  severely,  declaring  that  he  says  noth- 
ing of  Christ  —  ''he  writes  only  of  fasting,  meats,  virginity." 
Jerome's  emphasis  on  monasticism  would  naturally  offend 
Luther,  but  his  judgment  on  the  Father  seems  justo  durius 
as  Rosenmiiller  says.  Further  evidence  of  the  Reformer's 
historical  sense  may  be  found  in  his  recognition  of  the  fact 
that  Moses  included  in  his  Law  many  things  which  had  been 
held  by  his  forefathers,  such  as  sacrifices,  circumcision,  dis- 
crimination between  clean  and  unclean  meats,  some  of  these 
being  even  borrowed  from  heathenism.  He  boldly  asserts 
that  the  Law  of  Moses  does  not  concern  us;  the  Gospel  does 
not  impose  laws  but  teaches  of  the  Spirit. 

Although  therefore  Luther  marks  an  advance,  yet  we  are 
compelled  to  say  that  to  approach  the  Old  Testament  with  the 
determination  to  interpret  it  in  the  sense  of  the  Reformers  is 
similar  to  what  we  have  found  in  the  earlier  period.  That  is, 
the  temptation  of  the  expositor  is  to  read  into  his  text  what  he 


LUTHER'S  APPEAL  8i 

desires  to  find  there.  The  fundamental  assumption  that  the 
sense  of  Scripture  is  one  and  that  the  obscure  sentences  must 
be  interpreted  by  those  that  are  clear  —  by  the  analogy  of 
faith  as  the  phrase  was  —  put  bonds  upon  the  expositor.  All 
that  we  are  concerned  to  show  is  that  Luther  was  far  freer 
than  his  predecessors.  His  impatience  with  earlier  commen- 
tators was  such  that  at  times  he  was  willing  to  throw  away  all 
commentaries  and  trust  the  common  sense  of  the  reader.  He 
holds  that  the  Holy  Spirit  is  the  clearest  writer  and  speaker  in 
heaven  or  on  earth,  and  his  words  can  have  but  one  meaning, 
that  which  we  call  the  literal  testimony.  This  does  not  mean 
that  there  are  no  figures  of  speech  discovered  by  the  same 
common  sense  that  we  use  in  studying  other  books. 

If  from  our  point  of  view  we  find  that  history  was  very  im- 
perfectly apprehended  by  this  great  leader  we  may  still  agree 
that  he  opened  the  road  to  a  sound  historical  exegesis  "but 
his  century  and  he  lacked  the  means  to  follow  the  path."  * 
The  strength  of  tradition  showed  itself  more  distinctly  in 
his  followers.  They  had  the  more  mechanical  view  of  faith 
which  regards  it  as  acceptance  of  a  philosophic  system,  a 
view  of  the  universe,  resting  on  an  infallible  authority.  The 
infallible  authority  was  now  no  longer  the  scholastic  tradi- 
tion, but  it  was  the  Bible.  The  position  accepted  by  the 
Lutheran  theologians  may  be  stated  in  the  words  of  Melanch- 
thon's  disciple,  George  Major,  who  in  1550  published  an  essay 
on  the  origin  and  authority  of  the  Word  of  God.  His  state- 
ment is:  "One  and  the  same  doctrine  had  been  in  the  Church 
from  the  beginning  of  the  world  to  the  present  time;  there  is 
perfect  agreement  between  prophets  and  Apostles,  one  voice 
in  all."  ^  Melanchthon  himself  affirmed  a  continuous  suc- 
cession of  prophets,  the  first  one  being  Adam.  A  certain 
gradation  in  rank  was  allowed,  some  being  greater  than 
others;  but  this  made  no  essential  difference  in  their  teaching. 
How  much  must  be  supplied  by  the  imagination  if  this  theory 

*  Harnack,  Lehrbiich  der  Dogmengeschichte,  III,  p.  867. 
5  I  owe  the  citation  to  Diestel  (p.  233),  not  being  able  to  consult  Major's 
book. 


y 


82    ESSJrS  IN  BIBLICAL  INTERPRETATION 

is  to  be  carried  through  is  made  clear  when  we  read  the  list 
of  names  of  the  prophets;  it  includes  Adam,  Seth,  Enoch, 
Methuselah,  Noah,  Shem,  Abraham,  Isaac,  Jacob,  Joseph, 
Moses  and  so  on."  Whether  such  a  theory  did  not  really  play 
into  the  hands  of  the  Roman  Catholics  was  a  question,  for  it 
is  evident  that  the  revelations  granted  to  some  of  these  earlier 
chosen  men  had  not  come  down  in  writing.  The  polemic  as 
to  the  sufficiency  of  Scripture,  however,  does  not  seem  to  have 
considered  this  point. 

An  issue  raised  by  the  Council  of  Trent  (besides  the  one 
on  the  necessity  of  tradition)  concerned  the  extent  of  the 
Canon.  Chemnitz,  whose  Examen  became  a  standard  work 
on  the  Protestant  side,  took  occasion  to  discuss  the  origin 
of  the  Old  Testament.  His  argument  was  that  the  revelation 
given  to  Adam  was  soon  corrupted,  just  because  oral  tradition 
could  not  long  remain  true.  This  question,  however,  became 
acute  a  little  later.  The  theory  that  orthodoxy  was  neces- 
sary, was  held  by  Protestants  as  well  as  Catholics,  and  if 
Scripture  was  the  source  of  correct  doctrine,  this  doctrine  must 
be  found  in  the  Old  Testament  as  well  as  the  New.  Melanch- 
thon  set  an  example  which  was  followed  for  a  century,  by 
demonstrating  all  the  articles  of  the  faith  from  the  book  of 
Isaiah.  They  are:  The  unity  of  God,  the  divine  and  human 
nature  of  the  Messiah,  as  well  as  his  birth  from  a  virgin,  his 
death  and  resurrection,  the  call  of  gentiles  into  the  Church, 
the  remission  of  sins,  eternal  life  and  future  reward  and  pun- 
ishment. He  even  finds  numerical  basis  for  a  prediction  of  the^ 
time  of  the  advent.^  The  example  only  shows  how  far  the 
leading  theologian  of  the  Reformation  was  from  a  really  his- 
,toric  view. 

Perhaps  the  name  of  leading  theologian  of  the  Reformation 
belongs  rather  to  Calvin.  His  clear  and  logical  mind  and  his 
thorough  scholarship  enabled  him  to  formulate  a  system  which 
has  not  yet  lost  its  power.    As  to  Scripture,  with  which  we  are 

8  Argumentnm  in  Esaiant  Prophetam  (Corpus  Reformatorum,  XIII, 
Col.  794). 

'^  Ibid.,  col.  799f. 


LUTHER'S  APPEAL  83. 

here  concerned,  his  position  is  quite  clear.  He  energetically  "^ 
rejected  all  allegory,  declaring  it  a  commentum  Satance,  and 
adding  that  it  is  something  like  sacrilege  to  turn  Scripture  one 
way  and  another  and  to  indulge  our  fancies  as  in  sport.*  He 
declares  that  God  cannot  be  reconciled  by  sacrifice,  basing  his 
opinion  on  utterances  of  the  prophets.  The  difficulty  of  ac- 
counting for  the  elaborate  legislation  of  Leviticus  is  met  by  the 
assertion  that  the  ritual  laws  are  a  commentary  on  the  Deca- 
logue, which  Calvin  regards  as  of  binding  force.®  He  even 
departed  from  the  current  of  Protestant  thought  when  he 
refused  to  find  Messianic  predictions  in  many  passages,  and  in 
the  Psalms  seeks  the  historical  background  of  those  which 
had  been  referred  to  Christ.  In  his  time  the  miraculous  ele- 
ment was  no  stumbling  block,  and  the  Copernican  view  of 
the  universe  had  hardly  begun  to  attract  the  attention  of  the 
more  daring  spirits.  In  exegesis  Calvin  was  distinctly  in  ad- 
vance of  his  time,  freer  than  Luther  in  the  rejection  of  alle- 
gory and  typology.  But  it  was  Luther  who  opened  the  road 
to  a  sound  exegesis  and  the  merit  of  leadership  belongs  to  _j 
him. 

8  De  Optimo  Methodo  {Corpus  Reformatorum,  XXXVIII,  2,  col.  405). 
*  Corpus  Reformatorum,  LIT,  p.  7. 


VI 
PROTEST    AND    REACTION 

THE  REFORMATION  was  a  protest  against  the 
Roman  system.  But  the  Reformers  brought  with 
them  the  idea  of  faith  as  the  acceptance  of  a  system 
of  doctrine  divinely  taught.  In  the  two  centuries  after  Lu- 
ther's death,  the  burning  question  with  the  theologians  was 
how  this  system  could  be  certified  as  in  fact  divine.  Even  in 
Luther's  lifetime  there  were  those  who  drew  radical  con- 
clusions from  his  premises.  He  had  shown  the  common  man 
that  the  conscience  has  its  rights,  and  that  Scripture  is  so 
plain  that  private  interpretation  is  justified.  Since  we  can- 
not have  the  blessings  of  liberty  without  having  some  risk 
of  its  abuse,  it  is  not  strange  that  individual  vagaries  soon 
showed  themselves.  How  the  peasants  interpreted  the  new 
doctrine  is  well  known,  and  among  Luther's  colleagues  ideas 
which  he  regarded  as  heretical  were  held  and  published.  The 
Old  Testament  gave  occasion  for  difference  of  opinion.  Since 
Moses  allowed  polygamy  Miinzer  practised  it.  The  Old  Tes- 
tament commended  heroes  like  Gideon  who  slew  the  enemies 
of  the  chosen  people.  But  these  new  sectaries  claimed  to  be  the 
true  Israel,  and  wielded  the  sword  against  the  Canaanites, 
\that  is  against  all  who  refused  to  accept  their  doctrine.  From 
the  affirmation  that  the  Law  was  no  longer  binding  on  the 
Christian  it  was  easy  also  to  infer  the  same  antinomian  prin- 
ciples which  gave  the  Apostle  Paul  trouble  in  some  of  his 
churches.  Heresy  was  no  new  thing,  but  the  Roman  Church 
had  been  able  to  check  it  by  calling  in  the  help  of  the  civil 
arm.  It  was  difficult  for  the  Protestants  to  defend  the  right 
of  private  judgment  and  at  the  same  time  punish  those  who 
exercised  the  right. 

84 


PROTEST  AND   REACTION  85 

However,  the  leaders  of  the  various  churches  were  in  the 
orthodox  tradition,  that  is,  they  had  brought  with  them  a 
system  in  many  respects  identical  with  that  taught  by  Thomas 
Aquinas.  The  Catholics  could  of  course  prove  the  system 
by  tradition,  and  at  the  Council  of  Trent  this  was  officially  de- 
clared to  be  binding.  The  same  council  made  the  Latin 
version,  current  in  the  Church,  the  authentic  text  in  all  con- 
troversies. On  these  two  points  —  the  validity  of  tradition 
as  against  the  sole  authority  of  Scripture,  and  the  accuracy  of 
the  Vulgate,  as  contrasted  with  the  original  Hebrew  of  the  Old 
Testament  and  the  Greek  of  the  New  Testament  —  the  issue 
was  joined.  The  Protestant  creeds  make  strong  affirmations 
on  both  points.  In  theory  also,  the  allegorical  method  was 
rejected,  although  when  the  emphasis  was  laid  on  preaching, 
as  the  most  important  part  of  the  public  service,  and  when 
this  preaching  was  avowedly  based  on  Scripture,  some  lati- 
tude was  allowed,  at  least  by  way  of  illustration,  and,  as 
Luther  said,  of  ornament.  To  prove  the  system  of  doctrine 
from  the  Old  Testament  was  a  matter  of  some  difficulty,  and 
it  was  not  made  easier  when  differences  arose  between  the. 
two  Protestant  communions,  Lutheran  and  Reformed. 

It  is  not  a  part  of  the  present  task  to  enter  into  the  history 
of  controversy.  The  Odium  theologicum  has  never  been  more 
unedifyingly  displayed  than  in  the  centuries  we  now  have  in 
mind.  Common  to  the  Protestant  parties  was  the  belief  that 
the  Pope  was  Antichrist,  and  that  the  Roman  Church  was  the 
Whore  of  Babylon.  As  to  the  attitude  of  Lutherans  on  points 
on  which  they  differed  from  Calvinists  it  will  be  enough  to 
cite  the  title  of  one  work:  Absurda  absurdorum  absurdissitna, 
Calvinistica  absurda,  hoc  est  invicta  demonstratio  logica, 
philosophica,  theologica,  aliquot  horrendorum  paradoxorum 
Calviniani  dogmatis.  The  same  doughty  fighter  who  con- 
cocted this  is  said  to  have  published  a  pamphlet,  Bellum 
Jesu    Chris ti    et    Jo.    Calvini}      The   Socinians    came    in 

1  The  title  of  the  Absurda  Absurdorum  is  taken  from  Weber,  Einfluss  der 
Protestantischen  Schulphilosophie  (1908),  p.  9,  and  of  the  other  work  from 
an  article  on  Grawer,  the  author,  in  the  Allgemeine  Deutsche  Biographie.  I 
have  not  seen  the  publications. 


86    ESSJTS  IN  BIBLICAL  INTERPRETATION 

for  their  share  of  objurgation  and  later  the  Arminians 
were  treated  in  the  same  way.  Doubtless  our  age  is 
unable  to  appreciate  the  earnestness  with  which  such  dis- 
cussions were  carried  on.  The  temper  of  the  English  Puri- 
tans may  give  us  some  light.  Moreover,  we  should  not  for- 
get that  a  practical  interest  underlay  the  polemic.  The  pro- 
fessors of  theology  were  training  men  for  the  ministry  in  the 
several  Churches.  It  was  necessary  to  instruct  them  so  that 
they  would  be  sound  in  the  faith.  This  faith  was  the  faith  of 
Luther  or  of  Calvin,  as  the  case  might  be.  Melanchthon's 
Loci,  which  was  the  theological  textbook  of  Germany  for  many 
years,  was  intended  to  explain  and  defend  the  simple  faith  of 
the  Gospel.  Its  aim  was  to  this  extent  practical.  Men,  sinners, 
must  be  brought  to  repentance  and  salvation.  This  Gospel 
was,  to  be  sure,  the  Gospel  of  Paul,  for  the  experience  of  the 
Reformers  was  distinctly  Pauline,  and  Melanchthon's  book 
originated  in  a  course  of  lectures  on  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans. 
The  examination  of  candidates  for  the  ministry  must  be  based 
on  some  such  compendium.  But  as  time  went  on  and  the"'^ 
polemic  of  which  we  have  learned  became  more  animated,  the 
need  of  a  metaphysical  basis  for  theology  made  itself  felt. 
The  professors  of  theology  in  this  period  were  also  teachers^ 
of  philosophy.  Thus  the  Aristotelian  system  which  was  so 
energetically  repudiated  by  Luther,  came  again  into  honoFr- 
We  are  here  concerned  with  the  influence  of  these  move- 
ments on  the  exposition  of  the  Old  Testament.  The  task  of 
the  exegete  was  a  double  one.  He  must  prove  the  harmony 
of  Scripture,  for  ex  hypothesi,  God  being  its  author,  there 
could  be  no  inconsistencies.  He  must  also  bring  out  the  dis- 
tinction between  Law  and  Gospel,  for  this  also  was  an  axiom 
of  the  Protestant  leaders.  Titles  can  be  quoted  on  both 
topics,  on  the  one  side  Althamer's  Conciliationes  Locorum 
Scripturae  qui  Specie  tenus  inter  se  pugnare  videntur  (1597), 
and  on  the  other  Artopaeus'  Discretio  locorum  Legis  et  Evan- 
gelii  (1534)."     A  more  elaborate  Conciliation  was  Pfeiffer's 

2  Artopaeus  is  cited  from  Heppe,  Dogmatik  des  Deutschen  Protestantismus 
im  sechzehnten  Jahrhundert   (1857). 


PROTEST  AND  REACTION  87 

Dubia  Vexata  Scripturae  Sacrae  (1699),  which  marked  the 
culmination  of  Harmonistic  efforts.  The  Jews  had  set  the 
example  as  we  saw  in  discussing  Manasseh  ben  Israel.  All 
parties  —  Catholics,  Lutherans  and  Reformed  —  would  agree 
in  the  principle  underlying  such  attempts,  that  is  that  God 
cannot  contradict  Himself.  What  the  Catholics  asserted  was 
that  the  Scripture  needed  the  interpretation  of  the  Church 
embodied  in  tradition,  whereas  the  Protestants  affirmed  the 
perspicuity  of  both  Old  and  New  Testaments.  The  question 
still  remained :  What  is  it  that  proves  Scripture  to  be  the ' 
Word  of  God?  To  this  the  Catholic  had  a  ready  answer  —  the 
Church  has  authoritatively  declared  it.  The  Protestant  found 
a  triple  ansvv^er.  First  was  the  Testimony  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 
and  this  is  affirmed  in  the  creeds.  What  it  means  is  that  the 
religiously  minded  man  finds  religion  expressed  in  Scripture. 
As  it  was  afterwards  put  by  Coleridge:  What  finds  me  is  in- 
spired. Only  the  doubt  might  arise  whether  all  parts  of  the 
Old  Testament  do  actually  appeal  to  the  Christian  believer 
in  such  measure  that  he  can  accept  the  whole  volume  as  being, 
or  even  as  containing,  the  Word  of  God. 

A  second  line  of  argument  was  found  in  the  testimony  of  ^ 
the  early  Church,  and  on  this  ground  the  so-called  Apocrypha 
were  rejected,  or  at  least  pronounced  to  be  of  secondary  impor- 
tance by  the  Protestants.  Thirdly,  it  was  held  that  the  ^ 
authors  of  the  Biblical  books  were  attested  as  prophets  by 
the  miracles  wrought  in  their  favor.  This  again  would  not 
be  objected  to  by  the  Catholics,  only  they  claimed  that  the 
miracles  were  not  confined  to  the  early  age.  In  the  first  period 
of  Reformation  thought  there  seems  not  to  have  been  a  dis- 
tinct theory  of  inspiration,  that  is  a  theory  of  the  inspiration 
of  the  writers  of  the  Books,  as  distinct  from  that  of  the 
prophets  whose  words  they  recorded.  In  fact,  Luther's  free- 
dom in  acknowledging  that  some  wood,  hay,  and  stubble 
might  have  come  into  some  of  the  Books  along  with  the  gold, 
silver,  and  precious  stones,  would  seem  to  preclude  such  a 
theory.  The  lengths  to  which  some  theologians  were  willing 
to  go  is  indicated  by  the  controversy  whether  there  were 


88    ESSJTS  IN  BIBLICAL  INTERPRETATION 

solecisms  in  the  New  Testament.  The  stricter  party  denied 
that  there  could  be  any,  since  the  Holy  Spirit  could  not  be 
supposed  to  make  a  mistake.  Those  who  affirmed  the  con- 
trary were  accused  of  blasphemy.  The  final  formulation  was 
the  theory  of  verbal  inspiration,  and,  as  if  this  were  not  enough 
to  insure  the  authority  so  much  desired,  the  hypothesis  of 
Chemnitz  was  taken  up  and  expanded.  It  was  supposed  that 
the  prophets  when  they  had  pronounced  their  discourses  posted 
up  copies  of  the  revelations  at  the  door  of  the  temple,  and  that 
when  the  people  had  had  sufficient  time  to  take  cognizance  of 
them  the  temple  servants  took  them  down  and  laid  them  away 
with  the  earlier  parts  of  the  sacred  Book.^  The  trouble  with 
the  hypothesis  is  that  there  is  not  the  slightest  historical  evi- 
dence for  it,  and  that  it  goes  directly  against  all  that  we  know 
of  the  relations  between  prophets  and  priests  throughout  the 
preexilic  period. 

This  theory,  that  an  official  sanction  must  have  been  given 
to  the  revelation,  may  be  illustrated  again  from  Carpzov, 
whose  introduction  to  the  Old  Testament  had  a  wide  vogue. 
He  maintains  that  in  order  that  a  book  should  be  canonical, 
it  was  not  enough  that  it  be  divinely  inspired.  There  should 
be  some  certificate  that  it  was  divinely  ordered  and  conse- 
crated and  handed  to  the  Church  as  the  rule  of  faith  and 
morals.*  Undoubtedly  the  great  folio  volumes  of  commen- 
taries published  in  this  period  prove  that  these  scholars  took 
themselves  seriously,  and  there  is  no  need  to  minimize  their 
scholarship.  The  emphasis  laid  on  the  original  languages  of 
Scripture  led  to  a  minute  examination  of  grammar  and  lexi- 
con, and  the  controversy  with  opponents,  whether  liberals  hke 
Grotius,  or  Roman  Catholics  like  Richard  Simon,  compelled 
careful  attention  to  the  meaning  of  each  verse.  All  the 
scholarship,  however,  was  made  subservient  to  orthodoxy^ 
and  this  was  the  orthodoxy  of  the  particular  communion  to 

3  Marloratus,  Prophetia  Esaim  cum  catholica  Expositione  ecdesiastica 
(1610),  Argumentum. 

*  J.  G.  Carpzov,  Introductio  ad  Libros  Historicos  Bibliorum  Veteris  Tes- 
tamenti  (Editio  Secunda,  1727),  p.  24. 


PROTEST  AND  REACTION  89 

which  the  scholar  belonged.  A  new  scholasticism  seems  to 
have  mastered  the  Churches.  Quenstedt's  definition  may  be 
quoted  to  show  the  point  of  view.  The  Old  Testament,  he 
says,  is  the  collection  of  books  which  by  inspiration  of  God 
were  written  by  prophets  predicting  the  advent  of  the  Mes- 
siah, in  the  Hebrew  language,  were  received  by  the  Jewish 
Church,  approved  by  Christ  and  the  Apostles,  and  recognized 
by  the  primitive  Church  to  be  the  perpetual  rule  of  faith  and 
life  in  the  Church  Universal.  The  prophets  have  become 
writers  instead  of  speakers  —  the  pens  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 
Differences  of  style  in  the  different  books  are  due  to  a  gra- 
cious accommodation  on  the  part  of  the  divine  Author, 

Since  an  authentic  text  was  a  need  of  the  theologian,  it  was 
assumed  that  the  original  had  been  kept  pure  in  all  ages,  and 
that  the  Hebrew  vowel  points  were  of  equal  antiquity  with 
the  consonants.  The  opposite  opinion  was  the  occasion  of 
an  animated  debate  in  which  the  two  BuxtQrfs,  father  and 
son,  took  the  leading  part.  The  more  historical  view  was 
broached  by  Ludovicus  Cappellus,  professor  at  Saumur,  The 
Buxtorfs  were  soundly  orthodox  and  defended  the  antiquity 
of  the  punctuation  —  a  view  now  thoroughly  discredited.  De- 
tails cannot  be  given  here.  The  incident  is  interesting  as  a 
symptom  of  a  dawning  realization  of  the  problems  presented 
by  the  Old  Testament.  The  Roman  Catholic  defence  of  the 
Vulgate  as  the  authentic  recension  led  scholars  of  this  school 
to  affirm  the  corruption  of  the  Hebrew.  It  was  easy  to  say 
that  the  malice  of  the  Jews  had  led  them  to  conceal  originally 
Messianic  passages  in  order  to  refute  Christian  claims.  The 
best  known  exponent  of  this  view  is  John  Morin,  who  held 
that  it  would  be  shameful  for  the  Church  to  be  in  bondage  to 
the  synagogue.  The  polemic  motive  in  his  discussion  is 
evident,  but  his  careful  examination  of  the  text  at  least 
compelled  the  Protestants  to  take  account  of  the  facts.  On 
this  account  Morin  has  been  called  the  father  of  textual 
criticism. 

Perhaps  this  honor  belongs  rather  to  Cappellus,  v/hom  we 
have  already  met  as  an  innovator  on  the  subject  of  the  vowel 


90    ESSJrS  IN  BIBLICAL  INTERPRETATION 

points.  His  Critica  Sacra  gives  a  systematic  discussion  of  the 
various  readings  found  in  parallel  passages  of  the  Hebrew,  or 
suggested  by  the  versions.  A  comparison  of  Kings  and  Chron- 
icles brought  to  light  a  number  of  such  variants,  and  in  many 
cases  the  Greek  version  revealed  an  underlying  Hebrew  bet- 
ter than  the  one  preserved  by  the  Jews.  The  book  was  bit- 
terly attacked  by  the  Buxtorfs  and  others,  but  again  the  facts 
were  called  to  the  attention  of  many  thoughtful  persons.  Cap- 
pellus,  it  should  be  remarked,  was  a  loyal  Protestant  and  had 
no  motive  except  recognition  of  the  truth.  In  fact  he  took 
pains  to  show  that  the  recognition  of  various  readings  in  no 
way  endangered  faith  and  morals.  British  scholars  kept  in 
touch  with  those  on  the  continent,  and  so  conservative  a 
scholar  as  Usher  was  candid  enough  to  recognize  that  a 
sacred  text  was  subject  to  the  same  laws  of  transmission  as 
were  other  ancient  documents.  Dogmatic  theologians  were 
disquieted,  however,  by  the  suggestion,  and  the  publication  of 
various  readings  in  Walton's  Polyglot  caused  John  Owen  to 
utter  a  sharp  attack  on  the  editor,  under  the  title  "Of  the 
Integrity  and  Purity  of  the  Hebrew  and  Greek  Text  of  the 
Scripture,  with  Considerations  on  the  Prolegomena  and  Ap- 
pendix to  the  late  Biblia  Polyglotta."  ^  Walton  replied  in  an 
equally  animated  publication.  The  Considerator  Considered. 
Party  feeling  no  doubt  had  something  to  do  with  this  debate, 
but  the  cause  of  truth  was  advanced. 

In  the  leading  ecclesiastical  circles  the  orthodox  view  still 
prevailed,  and  the  subservience  of  exegesis  to  dogma  is  indi- 
cated by  the  fact  that  almost  every  Biblical  scholar  was  also 
professor  of  dogmatics.  An  example  is  the  Lutheran  Calovius 
(Calov)  whose  chief  exegetical  work  was  called  out  by  his 
opposition  to  Grotius.  Grotius,  as  we  shall  see,  published 
Annotations  to  the  Bible  in  which  he  emphasized  the  literal 
sense,  illustrating  it  by  parallels  from  secular  writers,  many 
of  them  heathen.  Calovius,  to  counteract  the  dangerous  ten- 
dency of  such  a  work,  published  a  Biblia  Illustra,  in  which  he 
took  up  Grotius'  Annotations  one  by  one,  and  gave  the  cor- 

5  Owen's  Works,  Vol.  IV.    The  Epistle  Dedicatory  is  dated  1658. 


PROTEST  AND  REACTION  91 

rective.  His  scholarship  is  indisputable,  and  his  knowledge 
of  Hterature  extensive.  Moreover,  he  insists  on  the  literal 
sense.  But  the  literal  sense  is  everywhere  made  to  support 
the  dogmatic  tradition.  His  title  page,  which  is  too  long  to 
quote,  boasts  that  he  has  examined  the  readings  of  the  ver- 
sions and  vindicated  the  purity  of  the  Hebrew  text,  that  he 
refutes  the  errors  of  Jews  and  heretics,  and  that  he  submits 
the  depravations  and  false  interpretations  of  Grotius  to  ex- 
amination and  explodes  them.*^  His  prejudice  against  Cal- 
vinists,  Catholics,  and  Socinians  led  him  to  deny  the  merits 
of  all,  and  he  declared  that  the  Jews  can  teach  us  nothing 
concerning  their  own  sacred  Book.  The  work  is  prefaced  by 
an  elaborate  discussion  of  Old  Testament  chronology,  and  by 
a  treatise  on  weights  and  measures.  In  this  period  it  became 
the  fashion  to  supplement  the  notes  on  the  Hebrew  text  by 
elaborate  essays  on  questions  that  might  arise.  For  exam- 
ple, Pfeiffer,  in  the  Dubia  Vexata  already  referred  to,  takes 
occasion  to  discourse  at  length  on  Cain's  dialogue  with 
Abel. 

The  theory  of  perspicuity  could  not  altogether  hide  the  fact 
that  there  were  some  passages  in  the  Old  Testament  not 
altogether  plain.  Why  else  should  such  elaborate  commen- 
taries be  necessary?  The  answer  given  was  the  same  that  we 
have  met  before  —  that  God  was  pleased  at  times  to  speak 
obscurely  because  if  all  were  too  easy  the  reader  would  feel 
a  fastidium  for  the  Book.  John  Gerhard,  the  greatest  the- 
ologian of  the  seventeenth  century,  gives  this  reason,  and 
adds  that  the  obscurity  drives  us  to  more  earnest  prayer,  in- 
cites our  zeal  for  study,  humbles  our  pride,  keeps  the  profane 
from  knowing  the  truth,  and  increases  men's  reverence  for 
the  ministry.'^  The  corollary  of  this  emphasis  on  the  more 
perspicuous  passages  was  the  selection  of  these  passages  as 
the  basis  for  dogmatic  treatises.  Sebastian  Schmidt  of  Strass- 
burg,  one  of  the  ablest  Biblical  scholars  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  gave  a  course  of  lectures  on  the  Dicta  Probantia, 
and  these  lectures  were  afterwards  published  with  the  title 

«  Biblia  Illustrata   (1672).  '  Cited  from  Diestel,  p.  375. 


92    ESSJrS  IN  BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

Collegium  Biblicum!'  The  result,  which  was  not  foreseen 
by  those  who  followed  the  method,  was  that  the  conception  of 
a  Biblical  dogmatic,  distinct  from  the  philosophical  dogmatic 
on  which  the  chief  stress  was  laid,  came  into  men's  minds  and 
prepared  the  way  for  a  more  historical  understanding  of  the 
Scripture.  It  might  indeed  occur  to  some  that  if  this  part 
of  the  Bible  was  the  important  part,  the  rest  might  safely  be 
neglected.  This  conclusion  was  hindered  by  the  necessity  of 
studying  Church  history,  for  the  Roman  Church  must  be 
shown  to  have  departed  from  the  primitive  faith.  Church 
history,  however,  began,  as  was  held  by  all  parties,  in  the 
earliest  period.  And  until  recent  times  a  connected  presen- 
tation of  Hebrew  story  was  made  the  introductory  portion  of 
the  history  of  the  Church.  To  a  certain  extent,  therefore,  a 
corrective  was  applied  to  the  atomizing  method  of  the  the- 
ologians. But  that  the  interest  was  not  what  we  should  call 
historical  is  evident.  An  example  is  the  "Impartial  Church 
History  of  Old  and  New  Testaments  from  the  Creation  of  the 
World  down  to  the  Year  1730.'"'  This  work,  published  in 
two  thick  quartos,  divides  the  whole  history  of  the  world  be- 
tween Old  and  New  Testaments,  the  Old  Testament  being 
given  564  pages,  the  New  Testament  part  covering  all  the  rest 
of  the  time. 

The  theological  interest  of  such  works  is  indicated  by  the 
space  allotted  to  the  earliest  ages,  and  the  discussion  of  such 
questions  as  whether  Adam  knew  of  the  Trinity.  Since  all 
three  Persons  took  part  in  the  creation,  it  was  argued  that 
Adam  must  have  had  knowledge  of  them.  Heidegger's  His- 
toria  Sacra  Patriarcharum  devotes  its  first  volume  to  the  An- 
tediluvians, and  the  second  ends  with  the  death  of  Jacob. 
One  chapter  is  devoted  to  the  Church  and  Theology  of  the 
Patriarchs,  one  to  the  polygamy  of  Lamech,  another  to  the 
theology  and  idolatry  of  the  Cainites.    These  are  cited  simply 

^  The  title  is  taken  from  Von  Coelln,  Biblische  Theologie  (1836),  p.  19, 
where  some  other  works  of  the  same  kind  are  mentioned. 

^  Written  by  various  authors  but  edited  by  Heinsius.  Two  supplementary 
volumes  brought  the  history  down  to  1760. 


PROTEST  AND  REACTION  93 

as  specimens.  One  author  published  a  history  of  the  Noachian 
Church;  another  gave  a  history  of  Paradise.  A  literary  his- 
tory of  the  antediluvian  age  was  written  by  still  another.^" 
Much  attention  was  given  to  recondite  questions,  such  as  the 
date  of  the  creation,  whether  the  nineteenth  or  the  twenty- 
sixth  of  October.  The  Rabbis  as  we  know  had  settled  the 
day  to  their  satisfaction.  Similarly:  How  long  were  Adam 
and  Eve  in  Paradise?  Was  Abel  married?  Did  Enoch  go 
to  heaven  in  his  earthly  body?  Doubtless  many  of  these 
discussions  took  the  place  of  modern  doctors'  dissertations, 
and  were  simply  tests  of  scholarship  or  of  ingenuity.  And 
we  must  recognize  that  important  contributions  to  Biblical 
science  were  made  by  these  students.  Biblical  geography, 
Biblical  natural  science,  and  Biblical  antiquities  were  made 
to  throw  light  on  the  sacred  text,  and  some  of  the  essays 
in  these  departments  are  still  valuable.  But  it  remains  true 
of  the  professed  expositors  that  they  found  in  the  text  the 
ideas  that  they  brought  with  them.  In  the  eighteenth  century 
a  Swiss  theologian  put  into  an  epigram  the  results  of  his  obser- 
vation, characterizing  the  Bible  as  the  book  in  which  each  one' 
sought  and  in  which  each  one  found  his  own  dogmata. 

1°  Statements    of    Diestel,    p.    461.     Heidegger's    Historia    Patriarcharum 
(1683)  is  the  only  one  of  the  group  that  I  have  seen. 


VII 

ATTEMPT   OF   THE    FEDERAL   SCHOOL 

IN  THE  multitude  of  theological  parties  which  contended 
with  each  other  in  the  seventeenth  century,  it  seems  im- 
possible to  choose  one  as  more  important  than  another. 
But  the  influence  of  what  is  known  as  the  Federal  School  on 
Protestant  thought  has  been  so  marked  that  it  deserves  some 
attention.  We  have  seen  that  polemic  was  the  order  of  the 
day,  the  official  teachers  in  each  branch  of  the  Church  claim- 
ing to  have  the  true  doctrine  and  branding  the  others  as  here- 
tics. All  parties  appealed  to  Scripture,  and  all  agreed  in  the 
view  that  Scripture  was  a  divinely  given  system  of  truth,  a 
philosophy  which  was  substantially  the  same  in  the  Old 
Testament  and  in  the  New.  No  department  of  inquiry  was 
allowed  to  escape  from  the  bonds  of  dogma,  and  even  the 
sciences  which  we  should  call  secular  were  subordinate  lo 
the  crown  of  the  sciences,  theology.  Whether  in  fact  a  super- 
natural revelation  was  necessary  to  establish  the  propositions 
which  were  fundamental  in  any  religious  system  was  a  ques- 
tion which  was  raised  later.  For  the  period  we  now  have  in 
mind  so  radical  a  departure  as  would  be  implied  in  the  denial 
of  the  fact  of  revelation  had  not  appeared  in  the  theological 
world. 

It  is  a  recurrent  phenomenon,  however,  in  the  history  of 
human  thought  that  sharp  polemic  leads  to  examination  of 
the  adversary's  opinion,  and  usually  to  some  concession. 
Rigid  orthodoxy  confronting  heterodoxy  may  give  way  to  a 
mediating  school.  Such  a  school  arose  in  Holland,  the  coun- 
try where  there  was  the  largest  freedom  of  discussion.  It 
was  in  Holland  that  the  Arminians  attempted  to  modify  the 

94 


ATTEMPT  OF  THE  FEDERAL   SCHOOL       95 

rigid  doctrine  of  Calvin  concerning  an  absolute  predestina- 
tion, and  it  was  here  that  Grotius  approached  the  Old  Testa- 
ment from  a  more  liberal  point  of  view,  arousing  the  wrath  of 
Calovius  as  we  have  seen.  The  merit  of  his  work  is  that 
it  emphasized  the  historical  element  in  the  Bible  by  bringing 
it^  affirmations  into  comparison  with  those  of  other  literatures. 
Among  Dutch  scholars  of  this  period  there  were  others  who 
contributed  to  the  release  of  Old  Testament  science  from  the 
bondage  of  dogma  and  prepared  the  way  for  an  independent 
Biblical  scholarship. 

The  Federal  School  takes  its  name  from  the  emphasis  which 
it  laid  on  the  idea  of  a  covenant  as  the  foundation  of  theolog- 
ical theory.  In  a  sense  the  idea  of  a  covenant  between  God 
and  man  was  not  new.  It  is  found  in  the  Bible  and  in  fact 
in  early  society  the  covenant  relation  forms  the  only  social 
bond  except  that  of  blood.  It  is  not  strange,  therefore,  that 
the  Israelites  regarded  the  relation  between  themselves  and 
their  divinity  as  the  result  of  such  a  covenant  as  the  one 
which  bound  their  separate  clans  together  in  the  larger  social 
unit.  The  picturesque  embodiment  of  this  idea  is  the  story 
of  the  agreement  with  Abraham,  in  which  the  two  parties, 
God  and  the  Patriarch,  pass  between  the  pieces  of  a  slain 
animal,  thus  invoking  on  themselves  blood  revenge  if  they 
are  unfaithful  (Genesis  xv).  Later  in  the  narrative  we  have 
the  more  important  agreement  between  Yahweh  and  Israel 
at  Sinai.  In  the  mind  of  the  narrator  this  was  no  doubt  a 
confirmation  and  renewal  of  the  pledge  made  to  the  Fathers 
of  the  nation.  Jeremiah,  or  one  of  his  disciples,  believes  that 
a  new  and  regenerated  society  will  be  based  on  a  new  cove- 
nant, more  spiritual  and  more  effective  than  the  old.  Among 
the  Fathers  of  the  Church  we  find  that  Irenaeus,  at  least,  em- 
phasized the  idea,  for  he  speaks  of  the  covenants  with  Adam, 
Noah,  Moses,  and  Christ,  or  according  to  another  text,  with 
Noah,  Abraham.  Moses  and  Christ.^ 

Apparently  the  idea  was  not  followed  up  until  Reformation 
times,  when  we  find  it  in  Calvin,  though  his  doctrine  of  elec- 

^  Adversus  Hoereses,  III,  xi,  ii   (edition  of  W.  W.  Han'ey,  1857). 


96    ESSJrS  IN  BIBLICAL  INTERPRETATION 

tion  did  not  allow  him  to  extend  the  covenant  to  the  whole 
human  race.  In  his  mind  the  covenants  became  something 
different  from  treaties  or  agreements  between  parties.  They 
were  promises  of  grace  on  the  part  of  the  divinity  who  alone 
has  perfect  freedom,  promises  fortified  by  sacraments,  circum- 
cision under  the  Old  Testament,  baptism  under  the  New, 
which  were  pledges  for  the  fulfilment  of  the  promise.  In  this 
form  they  appealed  to  the  Reformer,  because  they  were  spe- 
cifically described  in  the  Bible  itself  —  the  stories  of  Abra- 
ham and  Moses.  Later,  however,  the  covenant  was  carried 
back  to  the  beginning  of  human  history.  Olevian,  a  Swiss 
theologian,  developed  the  idea  somewhat  more  fully  in  a  work 
published  in  1585,  strictly  Calvinistic  in  that  it  emphasizes 
the  covenant  with  the  elect.^  That  the  subject  was  in  the  air, 
as  we  say,  is  indicated  by  another  author,  Eglin,  whose  work, 
De  Feeder e  Gratice  was  published  at  Marbung  in  1613.^  The 
real  founder  of  the  school  was  Cocceius  (Koch),  professor  at 
Leyden  from  1650  to  1669.  His  life  came  at  a  time  when  the 
High  Calvinists  and  the  Remonstrants  were  carrying  on  their 
debate.  He  had  no  wish  to  favor  the  liberal  party,  but  rather 
to  give  the  orthodox  a  more  rational  basis  for  their  interpreta- 
tion of  the  Old  Testament.  To  a  very  moderate  extent  he  at- 
tempted an  historical  interpretation  by  carrying  the  idea  of  the 
covenant  back  to  the  beginnings  of  the  race. 

According  to  the  narrative  in  Genesis,  God  gave  a  command 
to  the  first  man.  This  was  now  interpreted  as  a  covenant,  as 
though  the  Creator  had  said:  Obey  the  commandment,  and 
I  on  my  part  will  give  you  eternal  life.  The  disobedience  which 
followed  was  therefore  a  breach  of  the  covenant,  and  a  new 
device  must  be  found  if  men  were  to  be  saved.  This  was 
the  covenant  of  grace,  primarily  between  God  the  Father 
and  His  Son,  according  to  which  the  Father  pledged  Himself 

2  De  Substantia  Foederis  Gratuiti  inter  Deum  et  Electos  cited  by  Diestel, 
p.  288.  The  only  work  of  Olevian  accessible  to  me  is  his  Expositio  Symboli 
Apostolici,  in  qua  summa  Gratuiti  Foederis  ^terni  inter  Deum  et  Fideles  trac- 
tatur   (Frankfurt,   1576). 

3  Not  accessible  to  me,  but  discussed  by  Diestel  in  the  JahrbUcher  fiir 
deutsche  Theologie,  X,  214. 


ATTEMPT  OF  THE  FEDERAL   SCHOOL       97 

to  redeem  the  elect  because  of  the  Son's  self-sacrifice.  In  the 
Old  Testament  this  covenant  is  effective  as  well  as  in  the  New, 
the  only  difference  being  that  the  Old  Testament  saints  were 
saved  by  hope  in  a  coming  Redeemer,  Christians  by  faith  in 
one  who  has  come.  It  is  difficult  to  overestimate  the  influ- 
ence which  this  theory  has  had  on  the  Protestant  Churches, 
both  in  Germany  and  Great  Britain.  Evidence  is  given  by 
the  Westminster  Confession,  in  which  the  theory  is  dis- 
tinctly set  forth. 

Criticism  of  the  doctrine  is  easy.  For  one  thing  it  reads 
into  the  Biblical  narrative  what  is  not  there.  In  the  mind  of 
the  narrator,  the  command  to  Adam  is  not  conceived  of  as  an 
agreement  between  parties,  but  simply  as  an  act  of  the  divine 
Ruler,  who  has  a  right  to  impose  His  will  as  He  may  choose. 
Even  the  alleged  covenant  with  Noah  is  so  called  only  by 
courtesy,  for  in  form  it  is  simply  a  promise,  confirmed  by  a 
sign  given.  No  condition  is  imposed,  and  there  is  no  promise 
of  a  salvation  to  come.  The  covenant  at  Sinai  indeed  is  for- 
mally correct  —  it  is  an  agreement  between  two  parties,  by 
which  Israel  is  pledged  to  do  certain  things,  and  in  return 
Yahweh  will  give  the  people  possession  of  Canaan.  But  to 
read  into  the  account  a  promise  of  the  Messianic  time  is  to 
abandon  the  literal  interpretation,  which  is  supposed  by  the 
Protestant  principle  to  be  the  only  correct  method  of  treating 
the  Scripture.  At  first  sight  therefore  the  alleged  advance 
made  by  this  school  seems  to  be  an  illusion.  But  that  there 
was  some  advance  is  made  by  the  attitude  of  the  orthodox 
party  which  at  first  denounced  Cocceius  as  a  Judaizer  and  a 
heretic.  More  clearly  than  had  been  done  before  he  recog- 
nized certain  imperfections  (defectus)  in  the  Old  Testament. 
One  of  these  is  the  promise  of  earthly  prosperity  given  to  the 
Israelites,  for  this  encouraged  the  desire  for  material  goods. 
The  forgiveness  of  sins  also  is  less  complete  under  the  Old 
Covenant,  and  on  this  account  Old  Testament  believers  could 
have  less  perfect  assurance  of  salvation.  Their  spirit  was  one 
of  fear  rather  than  the  confidence  of  sonship.  In  this  direc- 
tion there  was  an  approach  to  a  more  historical  apprehension. 


98    ESSJTS  IN  BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

Successive  steps  in  the  relations  of  God  and  men  were  discov- 
ered—  a  rudimentary  theory  of   evolution. 

The  idea  thus  broached  was  carried  into  more  detail  by 
the  disciples  of  the  great  theologian.  The  covenant  of  grace 
was  traced  through  three  stages  —  that  of  the  family  in  Abra- 
ham, Isaac,  and  Jacob,  that  of  the  theocracy  from  Moses  on- 
ward through  the  history  of  Israel  —  and  that  of  the  universal 
Church  from  the  time  of  Christ.  One  scholar  finds  it  possible 
to  divide  each  of  the  three  periods  into  seven  sections,  and  he 
discovers  a  certain  correspondence  in  the  three  sets.  This  is 
of  course  over-refinement,  but  it  remains  true  that  the  idea  of 
a  Biblical  theology  distinct  from  dogmatics  was  brought  to 
view  by  these  discussions.  But  that  dogma  still  has  much 
to  say  is  made  evident  by  a  work  which  we  may  call  the  cul- 
mination of  the  Federal  system.  This  is  the  Oeconomia 
Foederum  Dei  cum  Hominibiis  of  Witsius,  first  published  in 
1677,  translated  into  English  in  1771,  in  which  language  it 
went  through  several  editions.  After  an  introductory  dis- 
course in  which  the  author  treats  the  nature  of  the  divine 
covenants  in  general  he  takes  up  the  covenant  of  works  and 
describes  the  contracting  parties,  the  condition  of  obedience, 
the  promises,  the  penal  sanction  and  the  sacraments.  Of 
these  the  Sabbath  is  the  chief.  He  then  narrates  the  violation 
of  the  covenant  on  the  part  of  man  and  its  consequent  abroga- 
tion by  God.  The  second  book  introduces  the  covenant  of 
grace,  tracing  it  to  the  earliest  age,  and  making  the  agree- 
ment between  Father  and  Son  the  basis  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
atonement.  The  third  book  is  entitled:  The  Covenant  of  God 
with  the  Elect,  and  includes  the  dogmatic  loci  of  election,  vo- 
cation, justification,  and  sanctification.  The  fourth  book 
traces  the  historical  development  from  the  time  of  Adam  to 
Moses.  The  doctrine  of  the  prophets  is  dismissed  in  few 
words,  on  the  ground  that  it  has  been  treated  elsewhere,  but 
so  much  the  more  space  is  given  to  the  types. 

Here  we  come  upon  what  is  really  a  recrudescence  of  scholas- 
ticism. The  allegorical  method  had  been  rejected,  but  the  Old 
Testament  believers  were  dependent  on  the  promises,  and  it 


ATTEMPT  OF  THE  FEDERAL   SCHOOL       99 

was  necessary  to  find  these  promises  in  their  Bible.  Cocceius 
set  the  example,  and  his  contemporaries  commended  him  be-  / 

cause  he  found  Christ  everywhere  in  the  Old  Testament, 
whereas  Grotius  was  accused  of  finding  him  nowhere.  Where 
direct  predictions  of  the  Messiah  were  not  uttered,  adumbra- 
tions of  him  must  be  found.  The  resulting  typology  is  not 
as  extravagant  as  the  old  allegory,  but  points  in  the  same  di- 
rection. It  is  not  true,  as  has  sometimes  been  said,  that  Coc- 
ceius affirmed  every  text  of  Scripture  to  mean  all  that  it  can 
be  made  to  mean,  for  he  qualified  his  declaration  by  consid- 
eration of  the  intention  of  the  writer  and  the  agreement  of 
the  context.  Yet  to  us  the  artificial  nature  of  an  exposition 
which  makes  Adam  and  David  types  of  Christ,  the  slain  Abel 
a  type  of  Christ  in  his  death,  Enoch  a  type  of  Christ  in  his 
exaltation,  must  be  evident.  The  panegyric  of  Farrar,  there- 
fore, which  says  that  "this  theologian,  almost  for  the  first 
time,  developed  the  fruitful  conception  of  the  progressiveness 
of  revelation,"  cannot  be  taken  at  its  full  value.  But  it  re- 
mains true  that  when  Cocceius'  environment  is  considered 
we  must  give  him  the  credit  of  attempting  to  break  away 
from  the  bonds  of  dogma,  or  at  least  from  the  stereotyped 
vocabulary  of  the  dogmaticians. 

Cocceius  was  a  thorough  Hebrew  scholar,  and  his  lexicon 
was  useful  to  several  generations  of  students.  His  commen- 
tary on  the  Psalms  is  accounted  one  of  the  best  published 
in  the  seventeenth  century.  In  treating  the  Apocalypse  he 
was  less  happy,  being  influenced  by  the  tradition  which  has 
not  yet  died  out  and  which  sees  in  that  book  a  prediction  of 
all  future  Christian  history.  His  axiom  that  Scripture  can 
contain  nothing  unworthy  of  God,  that  is,  nothing  which  the 
expositor  thinks  unworthy  of  God,  was  the  one  universally 
accepted  in  that  period.  Yet  his  influence  in  promoting  sound 
scholarship  should  be  recognized.  Among  members  of  his 
school  Vitringa  takes  high  rank  in  the  estimation  of  Old  Tes- 
tament scholars  even  at  the  present  day.  Other  names  might 
be  mentioned  to  show  the  activity  of  the  leaders  of  the  Re- 
formed Church  of  Holland  in  this  period.    One  only  should 


lOO    ESSJrS  IN   BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

have  a  little  attention  because  of  his  opposition  to  one  of 
Cocceius'  aberrations,  even  thus  showing  his  influence.  This 
man  is  Balthazar  Bekker,  pastor  first  at  Franeker  and  after- 
wards at  Amsterdam.  He  drew  the  unfavorable  attention 
of  the  theologians  first  by  defending  the  right  of  teaching 
when  the  attempt  was  made  to  prohibit  the  philosophy  of 
Descartes  in  the  university  of  Franeker.  The  appearance  of 
a  comet  in  the  heavens  in  1680  aroused  men's  fear  of  im- 
pending disaster  or  of  the  end  of  the  world.  Bekker  preached 
against  the  superstition,  and  published  the  sermon.  His  at- 
tention being  thus  turned  to  apocalyptic  expectations,  he  pub- 
lished also  a  commentary  on  the  book  of  Daniel,  in  which  he 
controverted  the  view  of  Cocceius.  Cocceius,  although  he 
had  a  more  historical  view  than  the  stricter  Calvinists,  showed 
himself  under  the  influence  of  tradition  in  his  interpretation 
of  Daniel.  He  interpreted  the  vision  of  the  four  beasts  as 
a  prediction  of  events  that  came  after  the  advent  of  Christ. 
Bekker  saw  that  expectations  of  a  miraculous  intervention 
of  God  led  to  neglect  of  genuine  Christian  living.  Hence  his 
commentary,  which  at  least  discouraged  these  fanciful  inter- 
pretations. 

Bekker's  most  important  work,  however,  was  his  attack 
on  the  belief  in  witchcraft.  This  was  made  in  a  book  entitled 
The  Bewitched  World.  *  Like  the  others,  this  originated  in  a 
series  of  sermons.  Some  early  pastoral  experiences  had  con- 
vinced him  that  the  phenomena  then  attributed  to  demonic 
influence  were  simply  cases  of  disease,  and  this  led  him  to 
examine  the  Scripture  passages  which  were  adduced  to  con- 
firm the  popular  belief.  He  soon  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  alleged  magicians  of  Babylon  were  powerless,  and 
the  parallel  account  in  Exodus  fixed  this  belief  more  firmly 
in  mind.  The  resulting  inquiry  into  the  power  of  the  devil 
need  not  be  reproduced  here.  The  case  is  cited  to  show 
that  there  was  a  growing  appreciation  of  the  nature  of  the 
Old  Testament,  and  something  like  an  historical  interpre- 
tation.   His  conclusion,  after  examination  of  the  Biblical  evi- 

*  De  Betovered  Weereld  (1691). 


ATTEMPT  OF   THE   FEDERAL   SCHOOL      loi 

dence,  was  that  the  popular  belief  was  not  derived  from  the 
Scriptures  but  from  heathenism,  because  "those  who  have 
least  understanding  of  Scripture  have  the  most  of  this  super- 
stition." 

Like  other  men  who  are  ahead  of  their  time  Bekker  suffered 
for  his  opinions.  The  ecclesiastical  authorities  took  up  his 
case  and  not  only  deposed  him  from  the  ministry,  but  ex- 
cluded him  from  the  communion.  That  he  was  not  a  ration- 
alist, but  a  thoroughly  orthodox  believer,  was  made  evident 
by  the  volume  of  his  sermons  on  the  faith  of  the  Reformed 
Church  of  the  Free  Netherlands  which  he  published  in  1696. 
He  was  a  man  just  enough  ahead  of  his  time  to  call  forth 
the  odium  theologicum,  always  more  violent  against  inno- 
vators within  the  Church  than  against  unbelievers  outside. 
Grieved  at  the  attitude  of  his  brethren,  he  yet  had  the  satis- 
faction of  seeing  that  he  had  advanced  the  cause  he  had  at 
heart.  His  work  was  translated  into  German,  French,  and 
English,  and  contributed  to  a  more  healthy  opinion  through- 
out Europe. 


VIII 
RISE   OF   A   MORE   HISTORICAL   VIEW 


H 


ITHERTO  we  have  followed  the  stream  of  orthodox 
exposition,  tempered  at  times  by  some  slight  appre- 
hension of  the  historical  process  by  which  the  Old 
Testament  came  into  being.  Protestant  and  Catholic  teachers 
agreed  in  asserting  that  the  Bible  was  wholly  divine,  in  taking 
its  history  for  an  exact  statement  of  what  went  on  in  the 
earliest  ages,  and  in  regarding  it  as  the  inerrant  philosophy 
which  all  Christian  men  must  accept.  But  outside  the  Church 
tradition,  whether  Catholic  or  Protestant,  there  were  always 
thinkers  who  refused  to  take  this  view.  Among  these  we 
may  place  the  Socinians,  whose  antitrinitarian  views  were  the 
constant  object  of  attack  on  the  part  of  the  orthodox.  Since 
the  orthodox  theory  was  that  the  expositor  should  come  to  the 
Bible  with  his  mind  already  firmly  fixed  on  the  main  points 
of  the  accepted  creed,  it  is  not  strange  that  readers  who  had 
doubts  about  the  creed  should  take  a  view  different  from  the 
traditional  one.  We  are  here  concerned  only  with  the  atti- 
tude of  the  'heretical'  sect  concerning  the  Old  Testament.  It 
seems  clear  first  of  all  that  they  did  not  reject  the  older  rev- 
elation. In  fact  Faustus  Socinus  published  a  defence  of  the 
authority  of  Scripture  avowedly  in  contradiction  to  some  who 
doubted.  His  main  argument  concerns  the  New  Testament, 
but  he  asserts  that  the  Old  Testament  is  to  be  accepted  on 
the  authority  of  the  New,  and  he  denies  that  the  Jews  have 
corrupted  the  text  of  their  Bible. 

While  the  Old  Testament  was  thus  ostensibly  recognized, 
it  was  placed  in  subordination  to  the  New,  in  contrast  to  the 
orthodox  view  which  made  both  parties  of  the  Bible  teach 
the  same  doctrine.    A  sound  historical  sense  showed  itself  in 

I02 


RISE  Of  A  MORE  HISTORICAL   FIEIV      103 

the  affirmation  that  the  Old  Testament  does  <not  teach  a  fu- 
ture hfe,  that  it  emphasizes  work-righteousness,  that  it  laid 
stress  on  worldly  goods,  and  that  it  allowed  polygamy.  The 
exhortation  to  love  one's  neighbor  is  there  found,  to  be  sure, 
but  the  neighbor  is  the  kinsman  or  fellow-Israelite.  All  this 
might  be  best  for  Israel  in  its  puerile  state,  but  was  done  away 
in  Christ.  Against  the  orthodox  interpretation  which  saw  in 
the  animal  offerings  of  the  Law  a  substitutionary  propitia- 
tion, it  was  urged  that  an  animal  could  not  be  a  substitute  for 
a  man,  and  that  the  Law  allowed  sin-offerings  only  for  un- 
witting offences.  Because  of  this  really  historical  apprehen- 
sion of  the  defects  of  the  earlier  revelation,  it  came  about  that 
Socinian  writers  published  no  important  commentaries  on  the 
Old  Testament.  This  is  not  to  throw  doubt  on  the  religious 
earnestness  of  the  sect,  for  its  members  held  firmly  to  the 
belief  that  the  Christian  religion  is  the  way  to  eternal  life 
shown  by  Jesus  Christ.  The  affirmation  has  been  made  that 
their  system  by  insisting  on  the  complete  harmony  of  reason 
and  Scripture,  set  up  a  dogma  which  was  scarcely  less  a  hin- 
drance to  the  understanding  of  Scripture  than  was  the  ortho- 
dox claim  that  the  whole  Bible  taught  the  same  doctrine.  But 
this  is  an  exaggeration,  though  the  emphasis  laid  upon  the 
reason  did,  to  a  certain  extent  free  exegesis  from  the  chains 
of  dogmatic  tradition. 

The  bitterness  of  the  orthodox  protest  need  not  be  dwelt 
upon,  but  we  have  already  had  occasion  to  note  that  discus- 
sion of  an  opponent's  view  often  leads  to  some  modification 
of  our  own.  Grotius  has  been  mentioned  as  a  scholar  who 
had  a  sounder  view  than  many  of  his  contemporaries.  He 
was  assailed  as  a  Socinian,  and  yet  one  of  his  books  was  an 
argument  against  the  Socinian  position.  This  was  on  a  doc- 
trinal question  and  did  not  directly  affect  his  Old  Testament 
work,  though  the  closer  examination  of  the  Biblical  text  to 
which  he  was  led  in  the  course  of  his  discussion  may  have 
helped  to  his  more  historical  view.  In  fact  the  more  his- 
torical view  was  coming  to  the  front  even  in  the  Roman 
Church.    It  was  in  this  communion  that  Jean  Morin  did  his 


104    I^SSJrS  IN  BIBLICAL  INTERPRETATION 

work  on  the  Old  Testament  text.  It  was  as  editor  of  the 
Paris  Polyglot  that  he  discovered  the  differences  between  the 
Masoretic  recension  of  the  Old  Testament  and  the  Samaritan 
copy,  and  also  between  the  Hebrew  text  and  the  versions.  The 
publication  of  his  conclusions  led  to  a  sharp  polemic  which 
cannot  be  described  here,  and  it  is  no  part  of  our  task  to  de- 
termine how  far  he  was  moved  by  a  desire  to  discredit  the 
Protestant  affirmation  of  the  integrity  of  the  Hebrew  original 
and  thereby  strengthen  the  Catholic  appeal  to  tradition. 

Of  Richard  Simon,  who  next  took  up  the  examination  of  the 
text,  we  are  certain,  for  he  himself  avows  that  he  is  seeking  to 
establish  the  Roman  Catholic  tradition.  Nevertheless,  his 
Critical  History  of  the  Old  Testament  is  rightly  named  one 
of  the  epoch-making  books  in  Biblical  science.^  In  the  matter 
of  textual  criticism  he  had  a  predecessor  in  Cappellus  as  well  as 
in  Morin.  Spinoza  also  had  discussed  questions  of  author- 
ship. Simon  treated  the  subjects  as  part  of  the  literary  his- 
tory of  the  Hebrew  Bible.  In  other  words,  he  recognized  the 
important  fact  of  compilation.  His  theory  is  that  there  was 
a  guild  of  scribes,  first  appointed  by  Moses,  but  continuing 
throughout  the  history  of  Israel,  and  that  they  wrote  down 
what  was  important  to  be  preserved.  Moses  was  the  author 
of  the  laws  which  these  men  recorded,  but  they  took  the  nar- 
rative portions  from  other  sources.  During  the  exile  the 
material  they  had  gathered  fell  into  disorder,  and  members  of 
Ezra's  synagogue  rearranged  it  as  best  they  could,  but  often 
had  imperfect  copies  on  which  to  rely.  The  authority  of  the 
books  is  saved,  at  least  in  appearance,  by  asserting  that  the 
scribes  who  put  the  material  into  shape  were  inspired.  In  this 
respect  we  see  the  influence  of  traditional  views,  but  it  re- 
mains true  that  two  facts  of  importance  were  clearly  recog- 
nized. One  was  the  compilatory  nature  of  the  books,  the 
other  was  the  nature  of  manuscript  transmission,  which  sub- 
jected the  books  to  the  same  influences  which  we  find  in  other 
literature.  Simon  is  said  to  have  fortified  his  position  by 
adducing  the  Jesuits  of  Louvain,  who  had  asserted  that  a 

1  Histoire  Critique  du  Vieux  Testament  (1678). 


RISE  OF  A  MORE  HISTORICAL   VIEW      105 

verbal  inspiration  of  the  whole  Old  Testament  need  not  be 
assumed.  It  is  evident  that  there  was  a  tendency  in  various 
quarters  to  take  a  more  historical  view. 

This  tendency  was  accelerated  by  discussion  in  the  field  of 
philosophy.  Descartes  had  opened  a  new  view  by  his  start- 
ling proposition  to  begin  his  system  with  doubt.  This  was 
precisely  the  opposite  of  the  theological  principle,  and  the 
innovator  was  assailed  on  all  sides.  A  little  later  one  Lud- 
wig  Meyer  published  a  work,  Philosophia,  Sacrae  Scripturae 
Interpres.'  The  author,  who  was  a  physician,  maintained 
that  philosophy  gives  the  certain  and  indubitable  knowledge 
of  things,  to  which  the  theologians  must  pay  heed  in  their 
exegesis.  The  application  was  left  to  others,  but  the  ten- 
dency of  the  work  must  have  been  obvious.  Perhaps  it  may 
be  worth  while  to  mention  here  the  essay  of  Isaac  Peyrere 
entitled  PrcB-AdamitoB  (1655),  which  maintained  that  there 
were  men  before  Adam.  The  book  is  a  S3miptom  of  the  spec- 
ulation in  which  men  were  indulging  in  order  to  do  justice  to 
the  new  knowledge  of  the  world  and  history,  and  at  the  same 
time  to  hold  to  the  data  of  the  Old  Testament. 

Into  the  field  of  Old  Testament  exposition  now  entered  the 
philosopher  Spinoza  with  his  Tractatus  Theologico-politicus.^ 
As  a  Jew,  the  author  was  of  course  familiar  with  the  Hebrew 
Bible  and  with  the  Jewish  commentators,  and  as  a  philosopher 
he  was  free  from  the  prejudgments  of  the  dogmatic  theo- 
logians. His  treatise  was  written  primarily  to  defend  the 
right  of  free  inquiry,  something  the  ecclesiastical  authorities 
would  have  suppressed.  The  Jewish  scholar  Aben  Ezra  had 
obscurely  hinted  that  certain  passages  in  the  Pentateuch  in- 
dicate post-Mosaic  authorship.  Spinoza  takes  up  the  broader 
question  whether  a  connected  history,  like  that  which  ex- 
tends from  Genesis  through  Second  Kings,  was  not  necessarily 
the  work  of  a  man  who  lived  in  or  after  the  exile.    He  con- 

-  The  work  which  was  published  anonymously  is  rare,  and  I  have  not 
seen  a  copy.     See  the  sketch  in  Allgevieme  Deutsche  Biographk,  Vol.  XXI, 

p.    60Qf. 

3  Published  anonymously  in  1650,  a  little  before  the  work  of  Simon  and 
Peyrere. 


r 


io6    ESSJTS  IN  BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

dudes  that  the  only  character  known  to  us  who  could  have 
written  the  books  is  Ezra.  He  finds  evidence  of  compilation 
also  in  the  two  recensions  of  the  Decalogue,  and  in  the  incon- 
sistent chronological  data.  In  accordance  with  his  philo- 
sophical principles  he  recognizes  the  inspiration  of  the  Biblical 
writers  in  so  far  as  they  inculcate  right  living,  and  the  things 
necessary  to  salvation.  As  soon  as  the  authorship  of  this 
work  was  known  its  influence  was  discounted,  for  Spinoza  the 
pantheist  was  abhorred  both  by  Jews  and  by  gentiles.  The 
unfavorable  verdict  of  the  Synod  in  1671  was  followed  by 
an  interdict  of  the  States  General  in  1674.  In  the  long 
run,  however,  Spinoza's  method  of  approach  must  make  an 
impression. 

It  was  in  this  same  century  that  a  beginning  was  made  in 
the  comparative  study  of  religion  by  the  work  of  John  Spencer 
on  the  Hebrew  laws.*  Spencer  was  not  a  rationalist  but  a 
loyal  member  of  the  Church  of  England.  What  led  him  to 
his  discussion  was  the  resemblance  between  many  institutions 
of  the  Jewish  Law  on  one  hand,  and  rites  practised  in  the  so- 
called  heathen  religions  on  the  other.  Even  slight  acquain- 
tance with  the  religions  of  Egypt,  Greece,  and  Rome,  revealed 
parallel  phenomena.  Inquiry  into  the  reason  of  this  could  not 
always  be  satisfied  with  the  theory  that  other  nations  had 
borrowed  from  Israel;  the  chronology  was  in  the  way,  for 
one  thing.  Nor  was  it  altogether  clear  that  Satan  as  the  *ape 
of  God'  had  induced  his  followers  to  caricature  the  Law 
divinely  given.  It  was  indeed  possible  for  the  simple  be- 
liever to  rest  in  the  faith  that  God  had  sufficient  reasons  for 
His  actions,  reasons  which  He  has  not  chosen  to  reveal.  It 
might  even  be  thought  an  impertinence  to  ask  for  any  reason 
except  that  the  command  was  given.  Timid  souls  have  taken 
refuge  in  such  a  faith  whenever  the  demand  has  been  made 
for  a  rational  faith.  So  it  was  in  medieval  Judaism  when 
Maimonides  attempted  to  discover  reasons  for  the  Law.  He 
was  sharply  attacked  by  those  who  would  adhere  to  the  old 

*  De  Legibus  Hebroeorum  Ritualibus,  first  published  in  1685.  I  use  the 
second  edition  published  at  The  Hague,  1686. 


RISE  OF  A   MORE  HISTORICAL    VIEW      107 

paths  witJiout  intruding  into  the  mysteries  which  the  letter  of 
Scripture  did  not  discuss. 

But  there  was  now  a  new  spirit  in  the  air.  The  philosophers 
were  demanding  that  the  rights  of  the  human  reason  should  be 
respected.  Spencer  found  that  the  apparent  unreason  of  some 
of  the  laws  was  a  stumbling  block  to  Christians,  even  as  it 
had  led  some  Jews  to  renounce  their  religion  and  become  Mus- 
lims. In  a  sense  the  questions  raised  had  already  confronted 
the  early  Fathers,  on  whom  the  task  had  fallen  to  defend  the 
Old  Testament  revelation  while  condemning  the  heathenism 
which  in  some  respects  was  so  like  it.  Their  refuge  was  the 
allegorical  interpretation,  but  this  was  now  discredited,  and 
a  new  attempt  must  be  made.  Spencer  asks  us  to  put  our- 
selves in  the  place  of  the  Israelites  just  emerging  from  Egypt, 
and  then  see  why  they  needed  just  such  laws  as  were  actually 
given.  The  reason  is  two-fold.  First,  they  must  be  weaned 
from  idolatry  by  prohibitions  of  customs  which  they  had 
adopted  from  their  gentile  neighbors;  but  since  they  were  not 
advanced  enough  to  understand  a  purely  spiritual  religion 
they  must  be  allowed,  in  the  second  place,  to  retain  some 
things  to  which  they  were  attached,  lest  the  break  with  the 
past  should  be  too  severe  for  them  to  undertake.  It  is  un- 
necessary, therefore,  says  Spencer,  to  resort  to  excessive 
allegorizing  in  order  to  defend  the  laws,  especially  since  the 
Biblical  text  itself  gives  no  ground  for  such  treatment.  Sym- 
bols and  types  indeed  we  must  allow,  since  these  are  found  in 
all  religions,  and  were  especially  agreeable  to  people  ac- 
quainted with  Egyptian  thought;  and  this  is  the  more  prob- 
able since  the  revelation  given  to  Moses  must  be  expressed  in 
forms  of  speech  familiar  to  him. 

The  author  is  not  always  clear  in  his  division  between  the 
prohibited  rites  and  those  which,  because  the  people  were 
attached  to  them,  were  still  allowed,  but  he  does  bring  for- 
ward a  number  of  resemblances  which  the  comparative  study 
of  religion  has  confirmed.^  Thus:  pollution  by  contact  with 
the  dead,  or  with  the  mother  of  a  new-born  child,  is  certified  in 
many  quarters  of  the  globe,  and  the  Israelites  sharing  this 


io8    ESSJrS  IN  BIBLICAL  INTERPRETATION 

belief,  had  provision  made  for  it  in  their  system.  Perhaps 
it  was  not  for  this  reason  alone,  for  all  the  laws  of  clean  and 
unclean  were  intended  to  make  access  to  the  sanctuary  more 
difficult,  and  so  to  enhance  the  reverence  in  which  the  sacred 
place  was  held.  For  this  reason  purifications  before  an  act 
of  worship  were  enjoined  or  practised  among  many  nations, 
Greeks  and  Romans,  for  example,  as  well  as  Egyptians. 
Again,  animal  sacrifice  was  the  accepted  mode  of  worship  and 
was  continued  as  a  concession  to  the  rudeness  of  the  people. 
Jacob's  unction  of  a  sacred  stone  has  its  parallels  outside 
of  Palestine.  Firstfruits  were  offered  to  Jehovah  by  Israelites, 
as  they  were  to  Isis  by  the  Egyptians,  to  Demeter  and  Ceres 
by  Greeks  and  Romans.  The  joyous  festivals  of  the  gentiles, 
accompanied  by  sacrificial  meals,  were  likely  to  seduce  the 
people  from  their  allegiance  to  their  own  God,  unless  similar 
attractions  were  offered  them  in  their  own  religion.  The 
scope  of  all  these  institutions,  therefore,  is  to  wean  the  people 
from  idolatry.  Circumcision  they  already  regarded  as  a  charm 
or  talisman  defending  men  from  the  demons.  They  were 
allowed  to  continue  it,  only  having  a  new  interpretation  placed 
upon  it,  by  which  it  became  the  sign  of  the  covenant  with 
their  God,  who  was  thus  in  fact  certified  as  their  protector. 

Further  similarities  were  easily  found.  The  high-places  at 
which  the  Israelites  worshipped  remind  us  of  the  mountain 
shrines  of  Greece.  Linen  garments  prescribed  for  the  priests 
were  the  same  that  were  required  also  in  Egypt.  The  ton- 
sure of  the  Nazirite  is  in  line  with  gentile  custom.  The  Ark  of 
the  Covenant  is  similar  to  the  sacred  chests  which  we  find 
in  use  in  Egj^t,  in  the  Eleusinian  mysteries  also,  and  among 
Etruscans  and  Phoenicians.  The  sacredness  of  the  Ark  was 
fatal  to  Uzzah;  not  unlike  was  the  experience  of  Eurypylus, 
who  was  made  insane  by  looking  into  the  chest  which  con- 
tained the  image  of  Dionysus.  Even  the  temple  was  a  con- 
cession to  the  rudeness  of  the  people.  Why  should  God,  or 
an  angel  bearing  His  name,  inhabit  a  temple  made  with 
hands  unless  to  accommodate  Himself  to  the  mood  of  a  peurile 
and  unbelieving  people,  a  people  who  demanded  a  God  near 


RISE  OF  A  MORE  HISTORICAL   VIEW     109 

at  hand  and  present  to  their  prayers  in  a  sensible  manner? 
The  Cherubim  with  their  animal  faces  are  quite  like  the  lions 
on  which  the  Syrian  Goddess  (Hera  according  to  Lucian)  was 
seated,  or  like  the  bulls  of  Zeus.  The  Urim  and  Thummin 
were  instruments  of  the  oracle,  such  as  we  find  elsewhere,  and 
the  ordeal  of  jealousy,  commanded  in  Numbers  v,  was  a  cus- 
tom long  in  use  among  the  gentiles,  one  which  God  conceded 
to  Israel  lest  any  miracle  or  privilege  known  to  other  nations 
should  seem  to  be  lacking  to  His  people.  The  promises  of 
temporal  rewards  for  obedience  were  adapted  to  a  nation  just 
out  of  Egypt,  as  we  see  in  their  demand  for  onions  and  garlic, 
whose  custom  was  to  pray  to  various  gods  for  temporal  bless- 
ings, especially  for  rain  and  fruitful  seasons. 

This  formidable  array  of  parallels  was  adduced  to  show 
what  God  in  His  condescension  allowed  the  people  to  retain.^ 
On  the  other  hand  many  apparently  unimportant  regulations 
can  be  explained  as  due  to  the  desire  to  separate  the  people 
from  their  old  idolatry.  Swine  were  unclean  to  the  Israelite 
because  they  were  sacred  among  the  Syrians.  Similar  pro- 
hibitions in  other  religions  are  due  to  the  sacredness,  taboo,  of 
the  animals  —  ram  and  cow  in  Egypt,  fish  in  Syria,  doves 
among  the  Phoenicians,  hare  and  fowl  among  the  early  Britons. 
The  lamb  was  chosen  for  the  Passover  sacrifice  just  because 
the  ram  was  worshipped  by  the  Egyptians;  and  the  prohibi- 
tion of  boiling  the  sacrifice  was  distinctly  contradictory  to 
heathen  custom.  The  command  not  to  boil  a  kid  in  its  mother's 
milk  was  given  because  the  Sabeans  thus  treated  a  kid  in  one 
of  their  magical  rites.  The  sacrifice  of  a  red  cow  was  en- 
joined to  emphasize  Israelite  opposition  to  Egyptian  cow- 
worship.  Mixture  of  seeds,  plowing  with  ox  and  ass  yoked 
together,  interchange  of  garments  by  men  and  women,  shaving 
the  head  in  time  of  mourning,  were  forbidden  because  these 
things  were  done  in  heathendom.  The  golden  calf,  borrowed 
from  Egypt,  was  made  an  object  lesson  to  teach  God's  ab- 
horrence of  idolatry. 

5  On  a  similar  theory  of  condescension  held  by  the  Fathers  see  an  article 
by  Pinard  in  the  Reckerches  de  Science  Religieuse,  Vol.  IX,  p.  i97ff. 


no    £SSArS  IN  BIBLICAL  INTERPRETATION 

While  not  all  Spencer's  affirmations  bear  the  test  of  time, 
the  majority  of  them  are  still  regarded  as  valid  evidence  of 
resemblance  between  Israel's  religion  and  that  found  else- 
where. Acute  as  were  many  of  his  observations,  they  were 
not,  in  his  mind,  material  for  what  we  now  call  the  compara- 
tive study  of  religions.  His  purpose  was  to  defend  the  ration- 
ality of  the  divine  legislation  in  matters  which  some  of  his 
contemporaries  were  affirming  to  be  absurd.  Yet  when  all 
is  said,  his  performance  is  a  remarkable  one.  It  was  so  re- 
garded by  the  theologians,  several  of  whom  undertook  to  con- 
vict him  of  infidelity.  The  relation  of  revelation  to  reason 
was  in  fact  coming  into  discussion  as  we  shall  see. 

What  we  have  discovered  concerning  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury is  that,  although  orthodox  scholasticism  in  the  most 
stringent  terms  affirmed  that  the  Old  Testament  is  the  direct 
work  of  God,  who  employed  the  human  authors  as  his  pens, 
yet  in  many  quarters  questions  were  raised  about  the  human 
element  in  Scripture.  The  Mosaic  authorship  of  the  Penta- 
teuch was  questioned  by  Spinoza,  and  something  like  a  liter- 
ary history  of  the  Old  Testament  books  was  attempted  by 
Simon.  The  next  step  in  advance  came  considerably  later, 
when  As  true  published  his  Conjectures.'^  Astruc,  Hke  Simon, 
was  a  Roman  Catholic,  but  he  seems  to  have  no  thought  of 
the  controversy  about  tradition  and  Scripture  which  so 
affected  the  work  of  his  predecessor.  In  fact,  as  his  title  in- 
dicates, he  was  interested  in  defending  the  Mosaic  author- 
ship of  the  Pentateuch.  What  had  impressed  him  was  that 
Moses  could  not  have  had  personal  knowledge  of  what  went 
on  before  his  birth,  and  it  is  unnecessary  to  suppose  that 
everything  he  wrote  came  to  him  by  direct  revelation.  The 
conclusion  is  that  he  drew  upon  tradition  or  upon  written 
sources,  and  the  evidence  that  it  was  the  latter  seemed  clear. 
It  was  in  finding  this  clue  that  Astruc  showed  his  originality. 
He  was  apparently  the  first  to  notice  the  difference  between 
the  divine  names  used  in  different  strata  of  the  narrative,  and 

*  Conjectures  sur  les  Memoires  Originaux  dont  il  paroit  que  Moyse  s'est 
servi  pour  composer  le  Livre  de  la  Genese  (a  Bruxelles,  17S3). 


RISE  OF  A   MORE  HISTORICAL    VIEW      in 

he  thus  gave  an  impetus  to  the  documentary  analysis  which 
has  been  used  by  the  critics  ever  since,  and  which,  in  spite  of 
many  attempts  to  discredit  it,  is  still  valid.  In  the  Conjec- 
tures he  separated  the  sources  and  discovered  that  two  sub- 
stantially complete  narratives  have  been  combined  by  a 
redactor  whom  of  course  he  supposed  to  be  Moses.  He  as- 
sumed indeed  more  than  two  sources,  but  the  one  thing  which 
came  sharply  to  view  in  his  analysis  was  the  difference  be- 
tween Jehovist  and  Elohist.  Since  he  carried  his  analysis  only 
through  the  book  of  Genesis  and  the  early  chapters  of  Exodus, 
it  seems  that  he  was  willing  to  concede  that  Moses  wrote  the 
rest  of  the  five  books,  but  his  successors  soon  discovered  that 
the  process  of  distinguishing  the  documents  could  be  extended 
much  farther.  But  without  exaggeration,  Astruc  may  be 
called  the  founder  of  modern  Biblical  criticism. 


IX 

THE   INFLUENCE    OF    PIETISM 

IT  IS  impossible  to  follow  a  strictly  chronological  order  in 
writing  a  history  of  Biblical  interpretation.  Many  and 
various  forces  were  at  work  in  the  period  we  have  been 
reviewing,  and  we  have  not  by  any  means  exhausted  the  list. 
Spencer  was  not  the  only  man  to  call  attention  to  the  parallels 
between  the  religion  of  Israel  and  the  religions  of  other  na- 
tions. Voss,  with  his  elaborate  discussion  of  the  origin  of 
idolatry,  showed  that  attention  was  given  to  the  subject,  and 
later  Alexander  Ross  issued  his  Pansebeia.  The  connection 
of  sacred  and  profane  history  was  treated  by  Shuckford,  who 
was  able  to  carry  his  work  only  down  to  the  time  of  Moses,  and 
Prideaux,  a  more  profound  scholar,  published  a  work  with 
the  same  title  for  the  later  period.  One  can  form  some  idea 
of  the  number  of  discussions  of  Biblical  questions  by  exam- 
ining the  great  Thesaurus  of  Ugolino.^  The  interest  of  the 
orthodox  continued  to  be  in  such  questions  as  the  faith  of  the 
antediluvians.  The  religion  of  Adam  was  proved  to  be  the 
pure  doctrine  of  the  Lutheran  Church,  though  in  eating  the 
forbidden  fruit  he  broke  all  the  commandments  at  once. 
Cain,  on  the  other  hand,  was  shown  up  as  a  hypocrite,  and  all 
his  descendants  were  stigmatized  as  atheists.  We  can  hardly 
wonder  that  a  reaction  against  discussions  of  this  kind  set  in. 
There  are  pessimists  in  all  ages,  and  the  complaint  that 
piety  is  at  a  low  ebb  occurs  in  the  seventeenth  century  as  else- 
where. There  was  perhaps  more  basis  for  it  then,  since  the 
thirty  years'  war  was  followed  by  general  depression.  The 
testimony  is  that  the  professors  of  Biblical  literature  were  in- 
different to  their  work,  and  that  the  students  did  not  attend 

1  Thesaurus   Antiquitatum   Sacrarum,   34   volumes   folio    (1744-69). 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  PIETISM  113 

such  lectures  as  were  given.  New  interest  was  aroused  by 
the  movement  known  as  Pietism,  which  sought  to  revive  the 
religion  of  the  people  as  distinct  from  mere  dogmatic  cor- 
rectness. It  is  not  necessary  to  suppose  that  vital  piety  had 
been  altogether  lacking.  Where  the  Ten  Commandments  and 
the  Lord's  Prayer  were  taught  to  the  people,  there  must  have 
been  some  genuine  Christianity.  But  in  the  universities  at 
least,  it  was  a  minus  quantity.  A  change  was  brought  about 
largely  through  the  influence  of  Spener,  a  genuinely  religious 
nature,  whose  Pia  Desideria  was  published  in  1675.  That  his 
emphasis  on  heart-religion  was  not  something  new  is  evident. 
Luther  was  a  man  of  religion  rather  than  a  man  of  theology, 
and  Arndt's  Wahres  Christentum,  published  in  1606,  on  which 
Spener  delighted  to  dwell  in  his  youth,  was  a  real  book  of 
devotion.  We  are  told  also  that  Baxter's  works  were  much 
read  in  Germany  in  this  period,  and  they,  too,  are  mentioned 
among  those  by  which  Spener  was  influenced.  Such  books 
instead  of  insisting  upon  a  theological  theory  of  Christ's  na- 
ture, and  the  precise  effect  of  his  death  in  propitiating  an 
angry  God,  dwell  rather  on  the  mystical  union  of  the  believer 
with  the  Saviour,  and  the  consequent  life  of  Christ  in  the 
soul.  The  question  of  the  means  by  which  this  life  in  the 
soul  is  kindled  is  answered  by  the  mystics  in  different  ways, 
some  depreciating  all  outward  means.  But  Spener  was  clear 
that  the  Bible  is  the  true  instrument,  in  God's  hands,  of 
effecting  this  work.  This  it  does  by  stimulating  the  emotion 
which  leads  to  right  conduct,  for  the  test  of  true  Christianity 
is  Christian  living.  Hence  the  prime  requirement  is  that  the 
knowledge  of  the  Bible  be  widely  diffused  among  the  people. 
To  this  end  the  training  of  the  clergy  must  include  the  stim- 
ulation of  personal  piety,  and  acquaintance  with  books  of 
edification. 

To  carry  out  his  ideas  Spener,  now  pastor  in  Frankfort, 
organized  private  assemblies,  at  first  in  his  own  house,  after- 
wards, when  the  attendance  increased,  in  the  church,  similar 
to  what  we  know  as  prayer  meetings.  The  purpose  of  these 
Collegia  Pietatis  was  that  believers  might  provoke  each  other 


114    ESSJrS  IN  BIBLICAL  INTERPRETATION 

to  love  and  good  works,  for  it  is  the  duty  of  all  Christians,  not 
of  the  clergy  alone,  to  instruct  others  in  the  Christian  life  so 
far  as  they  have  opportunity.  Opposition  to  these  'conven- 
ticles' soon  developed  among  the  ministers,  who  felt  that  these 
irregular  assemblies  were  an  intrusion  into  their  own  sphere. 
In  some  cases  they  were  prohibited  by  the  civil  authorities.  In 
the  universities  the  intimation  that  the  orthodox  professors 
were  not  doing  their  full  duty  was  of  course  resented,  and 
at  Leipzig,  where  Spener  was  in  1689,  the  opposition  became 
open  conflict.  At  Halle,  however,  the  faculty  was  in  sym- 
pathy with  the  new  movement,  the  leading  member  being 
A.  H.  Francke.  Here  were  organized  the  Collegia  Biblica, 
the  purpose  of  which  was  to  give  an  edifying  interpretation 
of  the  Bible  as  a  whole.  "An  unprecedented  zeal  to  read  the 
Bible  in  the  original  was  kindled  by  their  exertions,  which  in 
combination  with  practical  piety  did  much  to  break  the  dog- 
matic spell."  -  The  method  was  to  translate  a  passage,  give 
a  simple  explanation  of  the  sense,  and  add  practical  applica- 
tions. The  method  was  not  altogether  new,  but  when  taken  up 
with  earnestness  by  men  with  the  requisite  gift  it  gained  in 
importance. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  give  further  details  of  the  general 
movement.  What  interests  us  is  the  fact  that  a  new  impulse 
was  given  to  the  study  of  the  whole  Bible,  not  primarily  as 
a  textbook  for  dogma,  but  as  the  expression  of  the  religious 
life.  The  aim  of  the  leaders  may  be  illustrated  by  a  little 
book  published  by  Francke  and  afterwards  translated  into 
English  where  it  bears  the  title  Guide  to  the  Reading  and 
Study  of  the  Holy  Scriptures.^  This  work  was  commended  by 
the  well-known  Dr.  Doddridge  as  containing  the  best  rules 
for  studying  the  Scriptures  that  he  had  ever  seen.  It  be- 
gins by  urging  that  the  Bible  be  read  in  the  original,  and  the 
author  thinks  that  a  sufficient  knowledge  of  both  Greek  and 
Hebrew  can  be  acquired  in  a  short  time.     What  he  has  at 

'  Diestel,  p.  409. 

3  Manuductio  ad  Lectionem  Scripturm  Sacrcp  (1700)-  I  know  only  the 
English  translation  (American  edition,  Philadelphia,   1828). 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  PIETISM  115 

heart  is  that  the  student  should  read  the  whole  Bible  through, 
and  do  this  at  frequent  intervals.  Evidently  he  is  deprecating 
the  method  of  the  dogmatic  theologians  who  deal  with  isolated 
proof -texts  and  neglect  the  scope  and  connection  of  the  verses. 
Compendiums  and  manuals,  he  says,  may  respectively  possess 
merit;  but  they  must  never  preclude  the  learner  from  the 
Scriptures,  which  should  constitute  the  main  object  of  his 
attention.  Many  have  erred  greatly  on  this  point,  and  after 
consuming  their  time  over  compendiums,  their  advancement 
has  been  considerably  impeded,  and  they  have  frequently 
been  prevented  from  studying  the  whole  of  the  sacred  writ- 
ings. Elsewhere  he  warns  against  depending  on  the  com- 
mentaries, though  he  recommends  the  judicious  use  of  some  J 
that  he  names.  He  quotes  with  approval  the  saying  of  Chem- 
nitz: "Let  the  Scriptures  explain  themselves,  and  let  their-- 
genuine  force  and  native  emphasis  be  carefully  collected  from 
the  grammatical  significance  of  the  words,  in  order  that  the 
sacred  testimonies  may  carry  with  them  their  full  weight." 

It  is  evident  that  the  author  is  no  rationalist,  and  the  same 
is  true  of  the  immediate  circle  to  which  he  belonged.  He 
assumes  that  the  Bible  is  all  divine  and  that  its  sense  is  one. 
He  nowhere  intimates  that  there  is  any  difference  between 
Old  Testament  and  New.  His  doctrine  of  inspiration  would 
seem  to  be  of  the  most  rigid  type,  and  he  expressly  asserts  in 
one  of  his  treatises  that  Christ  is  the  nucleus  of  the  whole 
Scripture.  In  these  respects  it  seems  almost  absurd  to  sup- 
pose that  Pietism  had  any  influence  on  the  interpretation  of 
the  Bible.  Such  influence  it  had  nevertheless,  for  it  called 
attention  anew  to  the  fact  that  the  Bible  is  a  book  of  religion, 
rather  than  a  book  of  theology.  This  comes  out  in  the  dis- 
cussion of  this  very  question  of  inspiration.  Francke  says: 
"There  are  persons  perhaps  who  think  the  Holy  Spirit  is 
wronged  when  we  attribute  to  the  sacred  writers  affections 
which  are  in  reality  the  fruit  of  His  influence,  and  who  think 
that  the  Scriptures  are  not  to  be  referred  to  these  holy  men, 
but  to  the  Holy  Ghost  who  spoke  by  them.  To  this  we  answer 
that  the  fact  of  their  being  divinely  inspired  so  far  from 


ii6    ESSATS  IN  BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

militating  against  our  position  tends  itself  to  convince  us  that 
the  Holy  Spirit  kindled  sacred  affections  in  the  writers'  souls. 
For  it  is  absurd  to  suppose  that  in  penning  the  Scriptures 
they  regarded  themselves  in  the  light  of  mere  machines,  or 
that  they  wrote  without  any  feeling  or  perception  that  which 
we  read  with  so  great  a  degree  of  both."  The  meaning  of 
the  passage  is  plain  —  the  Bible  is  the  fruit  of  religious  ex- 
perience, not  of  a  mechanical  dictation,  and  the  religious 
experience  is  not  an  intellectual  apprehension  of  certain  alleged 
truths,  but  a  movement  of  the  heart  toward  God  and  our  fel- 
low men.  But  an  emotional  experience  is  understood  only 
by  the  man  who  has  its  like.  In  this  respect  the  Pietists  were 
right  in  declaring  that  they  were  reviving  the  religion  of 
Luther.  The  deductions  they  made,  however,  were  put  more 
distinctly  than  in  the  earlier  time.  Taking  the  Apostle's  dec- 
laration that  the  natural  man  receives  not  the  things  of  the 
spirit  because  they  are  spiritually  discerned,  and  giving  it  its 
face  value,  thesfi-authors^  affirmed  -Ihat,  only  the  regenerate^ 
really  understand  the  Bible.  -The  possibility  of  erratic  and 
extravagant  exegesis  was  not  slow  to  reveal  itself. 
"~Francke  lays  emphasis  on  the  New  Testament  rather  than 
the  Old.  His  view  of  the  prophets  is  that  they  were  primarily 
predicters  —  the  historical  books  describe  what  is  past,  the 
prophetical  describe  what  is  yet  to  come.  The  analogy  of  faith 
is  emphasized,  the  agreement  and  harmony  of  the  divine 
oracles  taken  for  granted.  Where  it  is  not  easy  to  discover 
the  direct  bearing  of  a  passage  upon  the  Christian  life  the 
reader  is  advised  to  pass  it  over  until  he  attains  greater  pro- 
ficiency in  spiritual  wisdom.     The  jtemptatipntq  force  an 


edifying  meaning  out  of  or  into  all  parts  of  Scripture  must 
come  inevitably,  and  the  door  must  be  opened  to  allegory 
and  typology.  In  emphasizing  the  analogy  of  faith,  however, 
Francke  was  in  line  with  the  Reformers  and  with  accepted 
Protestant  doctrine.  Spener,  as  has  been  said,  was  no  ration- 
alist, and  his  first  dissertation  was  a  refutation  of  Hobbes. 
It  was  blind  prejudice  which  moved  his  orthodox  opponents 
to  set  forth  264  doctrinal  errors  discoverable  in  his  writings. 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  PIETISM  117 

The  undue  emphasis  laid  upon  the  apocalyptic  books  by  some 
of  his  followers  is  not  peculiar  to  this  school,  but  recurs  in 
every  period  of  history.  When  all  is  said  we  must  recognize 
that  the  movement  gave  a  healthy  impetus  to  Biblical  study. 
The  Puritan  party  in  England  presents  a  phenomenon  not 
unlike  the  rise  of  the  Pietists  in  Germany.  But  as  their 
activity  is  largely  political,  we  need  not  attempt  to  write  their 
history  over  again.  We  are  more  interested  in  the  opposite 
tendency,  which  showed  itself  in  this  period.  We  have  seen 
that  the  orthodox  theory  regarded  the  Bible  as  a  divinely 
revealed  system  of  philosophy.  Since  the  Author  of  the  Book 
is  also  the  Author  of  nature,  it  was  necessary  to  affirm  that 
the  truth  revealed  in  the  Bible  is  one  with  the  truth  revealed 
by  a  study  of  nature.  Whether  in  fact  they  are  one  began 
to  be  questioned  as  physical  science  advanced  and  changed 
men's  view  of  the  universe.  At  the  same  time  the  broadening 
knowledge  of  the  world  of  men  raised  the  inquiry  whether 
the  Divinity  had  revealed  His  philosophy  only  to  the  insignifi- 
cant people  of  Israel.  Spencer's  hypothesis  concerning  the  re- 
semblances between  the  institutions  of  Israel  and  those  of  the 
heathen  could  not  satisfy  all  minds.  Lord  Herbert  of  Cher- 
bury  doubted  the  damnation  of  the  heathen,  and  Hobbes  ques- 
tioned the  Mosaic  origin  of  the  Pentateuch.  Confidence  in 
the  data  of  reason  led  to  the  rejection  of  allegory  and  typology, 
and  the  plain  and  literal  meaning  of  the  Old  Testament 
revealed  shortcomings  which  were  regarded  with  disdain  by 
the  enlightened  thinkers  of  a  more  advanced  age.  The 
reasonableness  of  Christianity  as  set  f orth  m  the  New  Testa- 
ment was  indeed  conceded.  Tindal  expressed  his  conviction 
in  the  title  of  his  work:  Christianity  as  old  as  the  Creation  or 
the  Gospel  a  Republication  of  the  Religion  of  Nature.  It 
is  easy  to  show  that  just  as  in  the  older  discussion  the  Bible 
was  interpreted  by  the  dogmatic  system  to  which  the  exposi- 
tor had  given  his  allegiance,  so  now  it  was  judged  by  an  alleged 
religion  of  nature,  a  dogma  like  the  others.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  view  of  the  identity  of  the  revelation  in  the  Old 
Testament  and  that  in  the  New  was  shattered,  and  the  de- 


ii8    ESSJTS  IN  BIBLICAL  INTERPRETATION 

fenders  of  tradition  were  compelled  to  make  some  concessions. 
Evidence  is  given  by  Warburton's  well  known  work,  The 
Divine  Legation  of  Moses,  which  defends  the  inspiration  of 
the  Lawgiver  precisely  on  the  ground  that  he  did  not  teach 
the  doctrine  of  a  future  life. 

Lord  Herbert  had  formulated  the  creed  of  the  religion  of 
nature  under  five  heads:  That  there  is  a  God;  that  He  ought 
to  be  worshipped;  that  virtue  and  piety  are  essential  to  wor- 
ship; that  a  man  ought  to  repent  of  his  sins;  and  that  there 
are  rewards  and  punishments  in  a  future  life.  These  beliefs 
he  supposed  to  be  innate  in  every  human  being,  and  to  be  the 
basis  common  to  all  religions.  What  was  more  than  these, 
was  the  addition  of  designing  priests.  The  debate  with  the 
defenders  of  revelation  does  not  concern  us  here.  All  that 
we  care  to  notice  is  that  the  Old  Testament  bore  the  brunt 
of  the  attack,  and  thus  negatively  the  way  was  prepared  for 
a  more  historical  view.  In  Germany  the  Wolfenbilttel  Frag- 
ments affirmed  the  impossibility  of  the  narrative  in  Exodus, 
and  here  also  the  religion  of  nature  had  its  advocates. 

We  seem  to  have  got  away  from  the  subject  of  Pietism, 
Yet  the  influence  of  this  movement  in  emphasizing  the  need 
of  studying  the  Scriptures  for  edification  rather  than  for 
dogma  is  in  evidence  throughout  this  period.  Semler,  who  has 
been  called  the  father  of  German  rationalism,  was  of  pietistic 
training,  and  in  fact  a  truly  religious  man.  He  had  expe- 
rienced in  himself  the  edifying  effect  of  reading  the  Bible, 
but  being  of  an  inquiring  mind,  he  observed  in  his  experience 
that  not  all  parts  of  the  Book  are  of  equal  power.  It  was 
natural  to  ask,  and  he  did  ask,  why  these  books  were  all  in- 
cluded in  the  collection  marked  off  as  sacred.  In  answer  he 
published  his  essay  on  the  free  investigation  of  the  Canon,  in 
which  he  showed  that  the  process  by  which  the  collection 
called  the  Old  Testament  was  made  must  be  investigated  by 
the  historical  method.  His  later  works  indicate  a  broad  mind, 
since  he  is  not  unwilling  to  concede  the  merits  of  Simon, 
Grotius,  and  Cappellus.  In  the  application  of  the  historical 
method  he  undertook  an  examination  of  the  alleged  prooftexts 


THE   INFLUENCE  OF  PIETISM  119 

from  the  Old  Testament,  tliose  which  were  adduced  to  sup- 
port the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  This  was  destructive  criti- 
cism in  the  eyes  of  the  dogmatic  theologians,  and  even  the 
pietists  must  have  been  distressed  by  it,  but  it  prepared  the 
way  still  further  for  a  really  historical  view. 

Our  discussion  will  not  be  complete  unless  we  notice  that 
the  movement  known  as  Pietism  has  not  yet  spent  itself. 
Count  Zinzendorf  was  under  Spener's  influence,  and  his  Mo- 
ravian Brotherhood  carried  Pietistic  ideas  into  practice.  The 
Moravians  in  their  turn  gave  an  impulse  to  John  and  Charles 
Wesley,  so  that  the  Evangelical  revival  in  England  might 
truthfully  be  called  a  Pietistic  movement.  Not  only  were  the 
Methodists  affected,  but  other  Churches  felt  the  influence. 
In  all  denominations  the  Bible  is  read  for  edification.  What 
finds  the  reader  is  assimilated  as  spiritual  nourishment, 
whether  in  the  New  Testament  (which,  however,  is  really 
normative)  or  in  the  Old.  The  Psalms  and  portions  of  the 
prophetical  books  are  most  highly  valued,  though  the  legal 
sections  are  made  profitable  by  typological  interpretation. 
The  organization  of  great  Bible  Societies  to  circulate  the  Word 
of  God  "without  note  or  comment"  may  be  called  a  result  of 
Pietism.  Other  influences  are  at  work,  however,  and  we 
must  give  them  also  some  attention. 


X 

ENDEAVORS    AFTER    A    BIBLICAL    THEOLOGY 

IN  THE  year  1787  Johann  Philip  Gabler  entered  on  his 
work  as  professor  at  Altdorf  with  an  oration  on  The  Right 
Distinction  between  Biblical  and  Dogmatic  Theology, 
and  of  defining  the  limits  of  each}  This  address  was  the 
clearest  enunciation  that  had  yet  been  made  of  what  men 
had  been  approaching  —  the  idea  of  a  distinct  science  of  Bib- 
lical Theology.  The  way  had  been  prepared  by  the  critical 
work  which  had  preceded.  The  name  Biblical  Theology  was 
suggested  by  the  Pietists.  They,  as  we  have  seen,  laid  empha- 
sis on  the  reading  of  the  Bible  as  the  source  of  edification,  and 
distrusted  the  "dead  orthodoxy"  which  they  too  often  found  in 
the  professors  at  the  universities.  Since  the  Bible  was  pro- 
fessedly the  source  of  doctrine  for  all  Protestants,  every  sys- 
tem of  Protestant  theology  might  claim  to  be  Biblical.  The 
trouble  was  that  so  many  systems,  often  at  war  with  each 
other,  had  resulted  from  study  professedly  based  on  the  Bible. 
The  Pietists,  by  insisting  on  the  Word  of  God  without  philo- 
sophical admixture,  suggested  the  idea  that  there  was  such  a 
Biblical  theology  as  might  claim  the  allegiance  of  all  believers. 
Gabler,  however,  was  not  a  Pietist,  and  he  looked  with  dis- 
trust on  the  claim  of  that  sect  to  have  superior  enlightenment. 
He  was  a  moderate  rationalist  and  believed  fully  in  the  scien- 
tific study  of  the  Scriptures.  He  was  a  pupil  of  Griesbach  in 
the  New  Testament  and  of  Eichorn  in  the  Old,  and  accepted 
Scripture  and  reason  as  coordinate  sources  of  the  same  divine 
revelation.     What  he  insists  on  in  his  oration  is  that  Dog- 

^  De  justo  discrtmine  theologice  biblicce  et  dogmaticm,  regundisque  recte 
utriusque  finibus,  published  in  the  collection  of  his  minor  theological  works 
(1831),  Vol.  II. 

120 


ENDEAVORS  AFTER   BIBLICAL    Til  EG  LOG  T     121 

matics  should  ascertain  the  universal  truths  contained  in  the 
Bible,  arranging  them  and  putting  them  on  a  philosophic 
basis.  On  the  other  hand,  Biblical  Theology  must  aim  to 
discover  the  religious  ideas  contained  in  the  Bible  in  their 
original  form  with  all  their  local  and  individual  characteristics. 
To  this  end  the  chronological  order  must  be  rightly  observed 
so  that  the  successive  stages  may  stand  out  clearly.  This  is  an 
intimation  that  there  was  something  like  development  in 
revelation. 

It  is  evident  that  Gabler  had  advanced  a  long  way  from  the 
time  when  men  could  discover  Adam  to  have  been  a  thor- 
oughly orthodox  believer  of  the  Lutheran  or  the  Reformed 
type.  The  human  element  in  Scripture  was  coming  to  its 
own,  and  the  intellectual  effort,  both  of  Pietists  and  of  Ra- 
tionalists, was  bearing  fruit.  Among  the  influences  to  which 
Gabler  had  been  subjected,  we  should  also  count  Herder  and 
his  esthetic  evaluation  of  the  Old  Testament.  For  the  eigh- 
teenth century  discovered  that  the  resources  of  the  Bible  were 
not  exhausted  by  Pietism,  nor  yet  by  either  the  old  orthodoxy 
or  the  new  rationalism.  Herder  as  a  theological  student  had 
made  the  acquaintance  of  the  systems  of  both  parties,  Ration- 
alists and  Pietists,  but  as  a  man  of  letters,  he  found  little  satis- 
faction in  their  treatment  of  their  text.  This  he  shows  in  his 
first  important  work,  entitled  The  Oldest  Document  of  the 
Human  Race.^  In  this  book  he  takes  up  the  account  of  the 
creation  as  recorded  in  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis,  and  pays 
his  respects  to  the  theologians  in  this  fashion:  "From  the 
time  of  Descartes,  Kepler,  and  Newton,  every  philosopher  has 
felt  it  necessary  to  make  a  new  world,  and  every  philosopho- 
theologian  has  made  Moses  a  teacher  of  this  new  teaching,  a 
childlike,  anxious-to-learn  boy  in  the  school  of  all  sorts  of 
metaphysics  and  recent  science."  He  goes  on  to  show  how 
the  brief  text  of  Genesis  appears  as  a  little  island  floating  in 
a  deluge  of  notes,  explanations,  and  expositions,  so  that  the 
text  is  lost  to  view  and  to  understanding.  To  understand 
this  outburst  we  must  recall  to  mind  that  the  reconciliation  of 

2  Aelteste   Urkunde  des  Menschengeschlechts,   1774. 


122    ESSJTS  IN  BIBLICAL  INTERPRETATION 

the  Bible  and  astronomy  was  at  that  time  much  what  the 
reconciliation  of  the  Bible  and  geology  was  in  the  middle  of 
the  nineteenth  century  and  later.  It  reads  like  the  modern 
affirmation  that  the  Bible  is  not  a  text-book  of  natural  sci- 
ence when  our  author,  indignant  at  all  the  hypotheses  for 
which  Moses  is  made  responsible  by  the  commentators,  says: 
"Moses  makes  no  claim  to  be  a  physicist  or  metaphysician  of 
the  eighteenth  century.  "In  the  beginning  God  created"  — 
Moses  has  no  need  to  speculate  on  beginnings,  on  creation  out 
of  nothing.  He  turns  his  back  on  all  such  speculations  and 
yet  men  insist  on  hanging  them  on  his  words.  And  if  he  can 
go  his  way  without  the  help  of  the  metaphysicians  why  may 
not  they  go  their  way  without  his?  Let  them  discover  what 
they  can  and  make  it  known.  God's  way  may  be  different, 
as  in  fact  it  is.  His  revelation  presents  us  with  a  picture  in 
the  language  of  humanity,  a  picture  such  as  every  human 
being  can  understand.  His  ways  are  different  from  our  ways; 
may  it  not  be  that  His  ways  are  higher  than  ours?" 

Recent  exposition  has  emphasized  the  literary  study  of  the 
Bible.  The  point  of  view  is,  however,  as  old  as  Herder,  and 
in  fact  older,  for  he  had  a  predecessor  in  Lowth  who  in  1753 
published  his  lectures  on  the  Sacred  Poetry  of  the  Hebrews. 
The  importance  of  this  work  is  that  it  treated  the  Hebrew 
poetry  as  poetry,  examining  it  by  the  standards  applied  to 
other  poetry,  especially  that  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  classics. 
This  book  was  republished  in  Germany  and  undoubtedly  in- 
fluenced Herder's  next  work,  that  on  the  Spirit  of  the  Hebrew 
Poetry.  In  this  book,  which  was  intended  for  intelligent  lay- 
men as  well  as  for  clergymen,  the  author  endeavors  to  set 
forth  the  real  beauty  of  the  Old  Testament  books,  especially 
the  Psalms  and  Job.  It  is  a  succession  of  dialogues  in  which 
one  of  the  interlocutors  is  a  young  man  who  has  been  com- 
pelled to  study  Hebrew  in  the  dry  grammatical  method  then 
in  vogue  in  the  class-room,  and  has  been  disgusted  with  what 
he  calls  its  barbarity.  The  other  character  represents  Herder's 
own  view,  leads  his  friend  to  look  with  unprejudiced  view 
on  these  monuments  of  ancient  thought,  and  reveals  to  him 


ENDEAFORS  AFTER   BIBLICAL    THEOLOGY     123 

unsuspected  beauties.  The  scornful  criticism  of  the  imperfec- 
tions of  the  Bible  in  which  the  older  rationalism  had  indulged 
was  thus  counteracted  and  at  least  it  was  shown  that  the  Book 
was  not  negligible. 

In  some  of  his  later  works  Herder  lays  more  stress  on  the 
organic  nature  of  Biblical  thought,  that  is,  the  idea  of 
progressive  revelation  was  coming  to  the  front.  Evi- 
dence is  the  brief  but  important  essay  of  Lessing  entitled 
The  Education  of  the  Human  Race.  Account  is  here  taken 
of  the  rudimentary  condition  of  a  nation  of  slaves  escaping 
from  Egypt,  where,  if  there  was  any  spiritual  religion,  it  was 
hidden  from  the  common  people.  To  such  a  people  God  must 
reveal  Himself  gradually,  giving  them  only  what  they  were 
able  to  comprehend.  Warburton's  theory,  that  the  silence  of 
Moses  concerning  a  future  life  was  a  proof  of  divine  wisdom 
rather  than  an  objection  to  the  revelation,  is  here  taken  up. 
The  claim  of  the  rationalist  was  recognized  in  the  assertion 
that  revelation  only  gave  men  that  which  they  could  discover 
by  reason,  but  the  author  held  that  it  gave  the  ideas  sooner 
than  they  would  otherwise  be  apprehended.  The  view  of 
revelation  as  progressive  was  taken  up  again  by  Herder  in 
his  Letters  on  the  Study  of  Theology,^  addressed  to  students. 
He  begins  here  by  saying  that  the  best  study  for  the  theolo- 
gians is  the  study  of  the  Bible,  and  he  insists  that  the  Bible 
must  be  studied  as  a  human  book.  Especially  in  the  use  of 
the  so-called  prooftexts,  one  must  always  be  careful  to  get 
the  words  in  their  connection,  and  must  understand  the 
author  from  his  own  time  and  circumstances.  As  he  puts  it 
elsewhere:  The  Bible  is  an  oriental  book;  to  understand  it  we 
must  leave  the  stuffy  room  of  the  German  student  and  walk 
out  into  the  clear  air  of  the  East,  and  look  at  the  picture  as  it 
here  reveals  itself.  There  we  do  not  reason  out  the  nature 
of  God;  we  feel  His  presence  near  us  and  are  glad. 

One  who  follows  the  course  of  Biblical  science  during  this 
period  must  see  that  men  were  feeling  their  way  to  a  more 
adequate  treatment  of  the  Hebrew  literature.    The  very  va- 

3  Brief e  das  Studittm  der  Theologie  Betreffend  (1780). 


124    ESSJrS  IN  BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

riety  of  treatises  which  were  pubHshed  —  discordant  and  hos- 
tile to  each  other  as  they  often  were  —  shows  that  no  one 
treatment  exhausted  the  richness  of  the  material.    The  Bible 
is  the  source  of  doctrine  to  the  theologian,  of  edification  to 
the  believer,  of  history  to  the  student  of  human  affairs,  of 
inspiration  and  enjoyment  to  the  literary  man.    To  the  pro- 
fessed interpreters  of  the  text,  that  is,  to  the  teachers  of 
theology,  this  variety  of  view  was  confusing.     The  inquiry 
forced  itself  upon  the  attention:  What  after  all  is  the  essential 
thing  in  the  Book,  the  secret  of  its  power?    The  endeavor  to 
answer  this  question  led  to  the  development  of  the  distinct 
study  which  Gabler  had  so  well  defined  in  his  address  already 
mentioned,   that  is.   Biblical   Theology.     Some   time  before 
Gabler's  attempt  a  book  under  this  title  had  been  published 
by  Zachariae,  one  now  forgotten,  but  which  in  its  time  went 
through  at  least  three  editions.*    The  author  realizes  that  his 
title  may  surprise  some  of  his  readers,  the  term  Biblical  The- 
ology being  interpreted  as  though  it  insinuated  that  other 
theologians  were  unbiblical.     He  goes  on  to  explain  that  at 
first  he  thought  only  of  publishing  an  exposition  of  the  dicta 
probantia.     But  the  plan  had  grown  under  his  hand,  chiefly 
because  his  experience  in  lecturing  on  the  Bible  had  shown  him 
that  often  the  meaning  of  a  word  or  passage  was  not  that 
which  theology  had  attached  to  it.    The  Hebrew  way  of  think- 
ing and  speaking,  he  goes  on  to  say,  is  so  different  from  ours 
that  we  often  have  difficulty  in  apprehending  the  exact  sense 
of  an  author,  and  even  in  the  New  Testament  Hebrew  forms 
of  thought  are  often  discoverable,  and  the  authors  being  Jews, 
the  same  reasoning  will  apply  to  them  as  to  the  writers  of  the 
Old  Testament.  The  ideas,  therefore,  which  we  from  our  child- 
hood have  been  accustomed  to  attach  to  the  words  of  Scrip- 
ture, need  to  be  revised  in  the  light  of  Scripture  itself,  inter- 
preted by  the  best  Hebrew  scholarship.    Self-evident  as  these 
considerations  may  seem  to  us,  they  were  in  fact  the  attempt 
to  take  the  new  point  of  view.    What  the  author  is  proposing 

*  Biblische    Theologie,    oder    Untersuchung    des    Biblischen   Grundes   der 
Vornehmsten  Theologischen  Lehren   (i775)-  '■ 


ENDEAVORS  AFTER  BIBLICAL   THEOLOGT    125 

is  a  re-examination  of  the  whole  BibHcal  basis  of  dogmatic 
theology,  with  the  desire  to  learn  what  the  Bible  itself  teaches; 
for  as  Christians,  we  are  obliged  to  accept  what  the  Bible 
teaches.  He  even  adds  that  as  a  teacher  in  the  Lutheran 
Church  he  must  keep  within  the  bounds  set  by  the  creeds  of 
the  Church.  He  has  not  therefore  escaped  from  the  bonds  of 
dogma,  and  to  this  extent  cannot  be  said  to  have  attained  a 
really  historical  point  of  view.  His  definition  shows  this 
plainly  enough:  "By  a  Biblical  Theology  I  mean  an  exact 
definition  of  all  theological  doctrines  with  the  formulae 
(Lehrsatzen)  belonging  to  them,  and  the  correct  understand- 
ing of  these  formulae  according  to  their  proofs  in  Holy  Scrip- 
ture." At  the  same  time,  however,  he  admits  that  each  Bibli- 
cal book  has  its  particular  aim,  different  from  that  of  other 
books,  and  that  this  aim  is  directed  primarily  at  the  state  of 
things  existing  when  the  book  was  written.  This  he  qualifies 
by  saying  that  the  divine  aim  in  giving  the  whole  Scripture 
does  not  interfere  with  the  particular  design  of  the  human 
author.  In  his  carrying  out  of  his  plan  he  further  shows  his 
limitations  by  mingling  texts  from  both  parts  of  the  Bible, 
so  that  we  may  agree  with  one  of  his  critics  who  says  that  he 
has  no  idea  of  historical  development.  His  attempt  is  one  of 
those  endeavors  of  which  we  have  so  many  in  the  history  of 
our  science,  which  concede  something  to  the  new  views  while 
holding  on  to  as  much  as  possible  of  the  old.  In  fact  down 
to  more  recent  times  the  dogmatic  theologians  have  thought 
of  Biblical  Theology  as  the  science  which  puts  into  systematic 
form  the  results  of  Biblical  study,  and  then  presents  them  to 
the  other  and  higher  science,  /'.  e.,  Dogmatics. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  describe  the  various  treatises  which 
came  from  the  press  under  the  title  of  Biblical  theologies  dur- 
ing the  period  now  under  review.  The  most  of  them  appeared 
in  Germany  because  Germany  had  a  large  number  of  uni- 
versities, each  with  its  faculty  of  theology,  because  Germany 
encouraged  research  in  its  professors,  and  because  in  Germany 
there  was  freedom  of  teaching.  One  book  may  be  mentioned, 
however,  on  account  of  the  eminence  of  its  author.    This  is 


126    ESSATS  IN  BIBLICAL  INTERPRETATION 

De  Wette's  Biblical  Dogmatics,^  first  published  in  1813.  It 
is  perhaps  significant  that  the  book  is  dedicated  to  Schleier- 
macher,  and  no  less  so  that  it  begins  with  a  discussion  of  the 
nature  of  religion.  The  traditional  orthodoxy,  as  we  have 
seen,  was  wholly  possessed  by  the  idea  that  all  the  statements 
of  the  Bible  were  intended  to  give  divine  sanction  to  certain 
creed  statements,  and  on  the  other  hand  the  current  rational- 
ism stigmatized  as  fraud,  or  as  wholly  unworthy  of  God,  every- 
thing in  the  Bible  which  did  not  agree  with  an  alleged  system 
of  reason.  De  Wette,  who  was  a  competent  Hebrew  scholar, 
saw  that  both  parties  do  wrong  to  the  Bible.  The  Bible  is  a 
book  of  religion,  and  religion  is  more  than  a  creed  and  differ- 
ent from  a  metaphysic.  This  point  of  view  had  already  been 
taken  by  Herder,  but  is  now  more  distinctly  formulated. 
Three  distinct  stages  of  Biblical  religion  are  named  —  Hebra- 
ism, Judaism  and  early  Christianity.  Considering  the  state 
of  criticism  in  De  Wette's  time  it  is  not  strange  that  he  retains 
the  idea  of  Moses  as  founder  of  the  theocracy,  though  he  sees 
that  we  have  no  really  historical  documents  from  the  Mosaic 
age.  He  thinks  of  Samuel  as  the  restorer  of  the  theocracy,  a 
theory  which  it  is  now  easy  to  criticize.  But  when  all  is  said, 
his  work  has  an  honorable  place  in  the  history  of  Old  Testa- 
ment science. 

One  other  work  may  be  mentioned  here  because  of  its  clear 
enunciation  of  the  proper  method  of  study.  This  is  the  Bibli- 
cal Theology  of  von  Colin,  pubhshed  in  1836.  This  author 
demands:  First,  careful  distinction  of  the  periods  and  of  the 
sources,  and  separation  of  direct  and  indirect  testimony;  sec- 
ondly, strict  adherence  to  the  view  and  conception  of  the 
several  writers;  thirdly,  recognition  of  the  symbolical  and 
mythical  forms  in  which  the  ideas  are  clothed,  and  their 
relation  to  the  pure  ideas  as  well  as  to  the  teacher's  own  con- 
victions; fourthly,  explanation  of  the  relation  between  the 
teachings  and  the  outward  circumstances  of  the  people  at  the 
various  epochs ;  lastly,  the  tracing  of  the  origin  of  the  ideas  in 

'■  Bibliscke  Dogmatik  alien  und  neuen  Testaments,  oder  kritische  Darstel- 
lunf,  der  Religionslehren  des  Hebraismus,  des  Judentums  und  Urchristentutns. 


ENDEAVORS  AFTER  BIBLICAL   THEOLOGT    127 

the  very  earliest  sources.  We  can  find  little  fault  with  this 
program  even  at  the  present  day.  Our  main  advance  has  been 
in  the  clearer  analysis  of  the  sources  and  their  more  exact  ar- 
rangement in  chronological  order.  In  this  respect  Vatke's 
work,  which  was  published  a  year  before  that  of  von  Colin, 
marks  an  epoch,  but  discussion  of  its  importance  must  be 
postponed  for  the  present.  The  result  of  the  various  works 
we  have  discussed  in  this  chapter  was  to  establish  the  idea  of 
a  Biblical  Theology  as  a  distinct  science,  an  idea  not  yet 
everywhere  accepted,  but  one  which  is  making  its  way  even  in 
conservative  circles. 


XI 

THE    BISHOP'S    PROBLEM 

FEW  MEN  now  living  can  recall  the  sensation  produced 
in  the  English-speaking  world  by  the  publication  of 
Colenso's  book:  The  Pentateuch  and  Book  of  Joshua 
Examined.^  The  sensation  is  evidence  that  critical  questions 
had  not  attracted  much  attention  in  England  and  this  coun- 
try. It  shows  also  that  the  charge  frequently  made,  that  the 
critics  are  mere  imitators  or  echoes  of  German  rationalists,  is 
without  foundation,  for  Colenso  was  innocent  of  any  taint  of 
rationalism.  He  was  brought  face  to  face  with  the  question 
concerning  the  Pentateuch  by  incidents  entirely  foreign  to 
Germany  or  indeed  to  Europe.  His  story  is  so  interesting 
that  it  may  be  repeated  here. 

J.  W.  Colenso  was  Bishop  of  Natal  in  South  Africa,  and 
interested  himself  in  giving  the  Bible  to  the  native  Zulus.  In 
translating  the  Old  Testament  he  had  the  help  of  an  intelli- 
gent native,  "one  with  the  docility  of  a  child  but  the  reason- 
ing powers  of  a  man  of  mature  age."  When  they  came  to  the 
story  of  the  flood  the  helper  asked  whether  it  was  true  that 
Noah  had  gathered  the  beasts  from  all  countries  and  carried 
them  in  the  ark.  The  Bishop  had  some  knowledge  of  geology 
and  had  had  some  misgivings  about  an  universal  deluge;  but 
he  had  contented  himself  with  the  explanations  or  hypotheses 
of  the  commentators.  Now  brought  face  to  face  with  an  in- 
quiring mind  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  a  literal  acceptance 
of  the  narrative  recurred  with  new  force,  and  he  was  obliged 
to  confess  that  the  story  was  not,  in  the  proper  sense  of  the 
word,  history.    This  was  only  the  beginning.    When  they  came 

^  The  first  part  was  published  in  1862,  and  later  volumes  appeared  at  in- 
tervals down  to  1879. 

128 


THE  BISHOP'S  PROBLEM  129 

to  the  book  of  Exodus  the  translator's  attention  was  called  to 
the  law:  *'If  a  man  smite  his  slave  or  his  maid  with  a  rod  and 
he  die  under  his  hand  he  shall  surely  be  punished;  notwith- 
standing if  he  continue  a  day  or  two  he  shall  not  be  pun- 
ished: for  he  is  his  money"  (Ex.  xxi:2of.).  The  Zulu,  who 
knew  of  the  lot  of  the  black  man  when  in  the  power  of  a  white 
master,  was  quick  to  feel  the  injustice  of  such  a  law,  and 
asked  whether  it  was  true  that  God  had  given  such  a  law  by 
direct  revelation.  This  opened  up  the  whole  question  of  the 
divine  and  infallible  inspiration  of  this  part  of  the  Bible,  and 
the  Bishop,  without  knowledge  of  what  the  critics  had  been 
doing,  set  out  to  examine  the  phenomena  of  the  books.  This 
he  did  in  his  own  way.  Being  an  expert  in  mathematics 
(several  text-books  in  arithmetic  and  algebra  had  been  pub- 
lished by  him)  his  attention  was  naturally  directed  to  the 
mechanical  difficulties  of  the  narrative  as  it  stands. 

The  point  of  departure  was  of  course  the  statement  that 
Israel  went  out  of  Egypt  with  a  force  of  six  hundred  thousand 
fighting  men,  which  would  imply  a  total  population  of  at  least 
two  million  human  beings.  That  this  number  was  taken  se- 
riously by  the  author  or  compiler  is  proved  by  its  repetition 
in  more  than  one  place,  and  by  the  detailed  census  and  its 
summation  as  recorded  in  the  early  chapters  of  Numbers. 
Various  attempts  to  explain  away  the  data  —  such  as  the  sug- 
gestion that  tents  should  be  read  in  place  of  thousands  — 
were  unknown  to  Colenso  and  need  not  have  influenced  him 
in  any  case.  The  text  is  plain,  and  the  difficulty  is  equally 
plain.  Think  of  miracle  as  we  may,  we  must  still  hold  that  a 
narrative  of  fact  must  be  consistent  with  the  known  condi- 
tions of  space  and  time.  What  now  is  implied  in  the  sojourn 
of  two  million  people  in  a  single  encampment,  or  rather  in  a 
series  of  encampments,  in  an  arid  desert  such  as  we  know  the 
desert  of  Sinai  to  have  been?  That  the  desert  then  was  what 
the  desert  is  now,  is  evident  from  the  Biblical  writer's  own 
description  —  a  waste  howling  wilderness.  That  Colenso  had 
no  objection  to  miracle  as  miracle  seems  evident,  for  the  sup- 
position that  a  whole  nation  was  fed  by  manna,  a  substance 


I30    ESSJrS  IN   BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

which  was  found  on  the  ground  six  days  out  of  every  week, 
for  the  space  of  forty  years,  does  not  seem  to  have  shocked 
him.  In  fact  he  says  that  he  does  not  find  insuperable  difficul- 
ties with  regard  to  the  miracles  or  supernatural  revelations 
recorded  in  the  book,  "but  solely  that  I  cannot  as  a  true  man 
consent  any  longer  to  shut  my  eyes  to  the  absolute  palpable 
self-contradictions  of  the  narrative."  One  of  these  concerned 
the  priest  and  his  duties.  Making  a  reasonable  allowance  of 
space  for  each  family,  we  find  that  the  camp  must  have  been 
twelve  miles  across  in  each  direction.  In  its  centre  was  the 
sanctuary  served  by  three  priests,  Aaron  and  his  two  sons. 
But  there  was  a  specific  direction  that  the  priest  should  daily 
carry  out  the  ashes  from  the  altar  to  a  place  outside  the  camp, 
and  also,  in  the  case  of  the  prescribed  sin-offering,  that  he 
should  carry  out  the  skin,  flesh,  and  offal  of  the  victim,  a 
bullock,  to  the  place  where  the  ashes  were  thrown  and  there 
burn  them.  The  amount  of  labor  thus  thrown  upon  the 
priests,  in  addition  to  their  other  duties  can  be  imagined,  or 
rather  will  be  seen  to  be  beyond  human  strength.  To  this  add 
the  difficulty  of  sanitation  for  such  a  camp,  and  the  allegation 
that  the  water-supply  came  from  a  single  spring  and  we  shall 
agree  with  the  Bishop. 

For  another  instance  look  at  the  matter  of  sacrifice  (I  am 
giving  Colenso's  argument).  A  number  of  offerings  are  en- 
joined which  for  so  great  a  number  of  people  and  so  small  a 
number  of  priests  must  be  burdensome.  For  example,  the 
Passover  must  be  observed  every  year  by  the  sacrifice  of  a 
lamb  or  kid  for  each  family  or  each  group  of  ten  people. 
This  implies  of  course  the  provision  of  two  hundred  thousand 
animals  for  this  occasion.  But,  according  to  experienced 
sheep-masters,  this  would  imply  a  total  of  two  million  sheep, 
for  the  sojourners  in  the  desert.  How  could  such  a  multitude 
find  sustenance  in  the  desert?  Allowing  that  the  people  were 
miraculously  fed,  can  we  suppose  that  the  cattle  were  simi- 
larly provided  for?  The  narrative  nowhere  intimates  anything 
of  the  kind.  Another  numerical  calculation,  which  need  not 
here  be  reproduced  in  detail,  shows  the  inconsistency  of  the 


THE  BISHOP'S  PROBLEM  131 

number  of  firstborn  males  according  to  the  census,  when  com- 
pared with  the  number  of  the  people  as  a  whole,  and  the 
probable  number  of  births  in  a  community  of  the  size  alleged. 
In  addition  there  is  the  often  urged  difficulty  of  supposing  the 
seventy  men  of  Jacob's  clan  who  came  into  Egypt  to  have 
increased  to  a  great  nation  in  the  time  which  had  elapsed.  In 
short,  wherever  we  turn,  the  narrative  as  it  stands  presents 
difficulties  of  the  most  serious  kind. 

It  does  not  help  us  much  to  assert,  as  the  conservative 
scholars  are  inclined  to  do,  that  these  are  the  oft-refuted  ob- 
jections of  infidel  enemies  of  Scripture.  The  striking  thing 
is  that,  however  often  refuted,  the  objections  recur  to  every 
new  investigator  who  takes  his  task  seriously;  and  that  Co- 
lenso  was  not  an  infidel  we  are  quite  sure.  From  the  modern 
point  of  view  we  are  able  to  account  for  the  phenomena  which 
gave  him  so  much  trouble.  The  inconsistencies  of  the  narra- 
tive are  due  to  the  combination  of  documents  of  different 
dates,  embodying  different  points  of  view.  The  genealogical 
and  chronological  data  are  for  the  most  part  taken  from  the 
Priestly  writer  who  was  fully  dominated  by  a  theory.  Accord- 
ing to  this  theory  Israel  came  out  of  Egypt  a  full-grown 
nation,  such  a  nation  as  afterwards  dwelt  in  Palestine  under 
the  rule  of  David.  The  author  projected  his  ideal  back  into 
the  desert  period,  sublimely  indifferent  to  considerations  of  time 
and  space.  His  work  is  not  history,  but  apocalypse,  apocalypse 
reversed,  that  is,  dating  the  golden  age  in  the  past  instead 
of  in  the  future. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  analyze  Colenso's  continuation  of  his 
work.  The  attacks  made  upon  him  led  him  to  examine  the 
essays  of  continental  scholars,  and  the  most  of  their  results 
he  was  willing  to  accept.  His  hypothesis  that  Samuel  was 
the  author  of  the  priestly  document,  and  that  Jeremiah  wrote 
Deuteronomy  has  found  no  advocates.  The  significance  of 
his  work  is,  as  already  intimated,  its  demonstration  of  what  an 
unbiased  observer  who  takes  up  the  Hebrew  story  will  find 
there.  That  he  may  still  hold  to  the  religious  value  of  the 
Old  Testament  Colenso  attests.     The  incident  suggests  that 


132    ESSJTS  IN  BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

it  is  unfortunate  that  the  question  most  earnestly,  not  to  say 
bitterly,  debated  in  his  time  and  afterwards,  has  turned  about 
the  'authenticity'  or  'genuineness'  of  the  Pentateuch.  Had 
critical  inquiry  begun  with  the  other  books,  so  that  the  stu- 
dent could  get  some  acquaintance  with  Hebrew  historical 
methods,  the  shock  in  discovering  the  composite  nature  of 
the  Pentateuch  would  have  been  less.  But  theological  opin- 
ion in  England  was  still  dwelling  on  the  inerrancy  of  Scrip- 
ture, and  an  attack  on  the  credibility  of  any  part  of  the  nar- 
rative contradicted  that  doctrine.  Colenso  points  out  that 
theological  teachers  in  the  Church  of  England  were  committed 
to  this  doctrine,  and  he  quotes  from  the  Bishop  of  Ripon  the 
declaration  that  the  Bible  is  the  infallible  record  of  the  mind 
and  will  of  God  —  "The  Bible  like  its  Author  is  pure  un- 
changeable truth,  truth  without  admixture  of  error."  That  a 
Bishop  of  the  Church  should  deny  this  made  the  scandal. 

The  ecclesiastical  remedy  for  heresy  is  not  argument,  but 
legal  process.  An  indictment  was  soon  found  against  Colenso 
and  presented  to  the  Metropolitan  Bishop  at  Capetown.  The 
case  was  complicated  by  the  fact  that  Colenso  had  published 
a  commentary  on  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  "from  a  mission- 
ary point  of  view,"  in  which  he  departed  from  the  accepted 
teaching  of  the  Church  concerning  the  substitutionary  nature 
of  the  atonement.  This  commentary  was  made  the  basis  of 
the  first  charge,  but  as  it  lies  outside  our  province,  we  need 
give  it  no  attention.  The  charge  based  on  the  inquiry  into 
the  historicity  of  the  Pentateuch  is:  "That  in  the  book  The 
Pentateuch  and  Book  of  Joshua  Critically  Examined  the 
Holy  Scriptures  are  spoken  of  as  a  merely  human  book,  that 
the  genuineness,  authenticity,  and  truth  of  certain  books  of 
Scripture  in  whole  or  in  part  are  denied,  and  that  the  writer 
maintains  that  our  Blessed  Lord  was  ignorant  and  in  error 
on  the  subject  of  the  authorship  and  age  of  the  different  por- 
tions of  the  Pentateuch."  The  argument  on  the  charges  fol- 
lowed the  line  familiar  to  us  in  other  cases  of  ecclesiastical 
process.  In  such  cases  the  prosecutor  points  out  that  the 
question  before  the  court  is  not  the  truth  or  falsity  of  the 


THE  BISHOP'S  PROBLEM  133 

statements  made  by  the  accused,  but  their  consistency  with 
the  law  of  the  Church.  Since  the  law  of  the  Church  con- 
tained in  her  formularies  took  shape  some  centuries  ago,  when 
critical  inquiry  was  still  in  its  infancy,  it  is  easy  to  show  that 
new  theories  are  inconsistent  with  it.  The  law  cited  in  this 
case  is  contained  in  the  Nicene  and  Athanasian  creeds,  in  the 
catechism  of  the  Church  of  England  and  in  the  Thirty-nine 
Articles  of  Religion.  The  Articles  quoted  do  not  in  so  many 
words  affirm  the  inerrancy  of  Scripture,  but  may  validly  be 
held  to  imply  it  since  they  forbid  the  ordaining  of  anything 
contrary  to  God's  Word  Written,  or  the  expounding  of  one 
place  of  Scripture  so  as  to  make  it  repugnant  to  another. 
Since  Colenso's  work  had  pointed  out  the  inconsistencies  in 
various  parts  of  the  narrative,  the  court  held  that  he  was 
condemned  by  the  Article,  and  gave  judgment  accordingly. 

Bishop  Gray,  before  whom  the  charges  were  brought,  pro- 
nounced his  decision  to  the  effect  that  the  opinions  set  forth 
in  the  books  of  Colenso  contravened  and  subverted  the  Cath- 
olic faith  as  set  forth  in  the  Articles  of  Religion.  His  sen- 
tence was  that  the  Bishop  of  Natal  be  deposed  from  his  office 
and  forbidden  to  exercise  any  divine  office  within  the  metro- 
politan province  of  Capetown.  Opportunity  was,  however, 
given  to  the  Bishop  to  retract  his  errors  within  a  term  of  four 
months  from  the  date  of  sentence,  within  which  period  the 
full,  unconditional,  and  absolute  retraction  must  be  made  in 
writing  and  deposited  with  the  Registrar  of  the  diocese.  As 
Colenso  refused  to  recognize  the  jurisdiction  of  the  court,  and 
of  course  the  validity  of  the  sentence,  the  Metropolitan  went 
so  far  as  to  pronounce  the  greater  excommunication. 

Colenso  was  not  present  at  the  trial,  having  sailed  for 
England.  His  protest  against  the  jurisdiction  of  the  court 
was  presented  by  one  of  his  friends,  who  also  gave  notice  that 
the  sentence  would  be  disregarded  as  being  null  and  void. 
The  Church  of  England  being  established,  an  appeal  to  the 
Crown  could  be  taken,  and  this  course  was  followed.  The 
result  was  that  the  Judicial  Committee  of  the  Privy  Council 
pronounced  the  proceedings  of  the  alleged  court  at  Cape- 


134    ESSJrS  IN   BIBLICAL   INTERPRETJTION 

town  null  and  void.  Colenso  returned  to  his  diocese,  where 
he  was  warmly  welcomed,  and  where  he  continued  to  preach. 
He  suffered,  however,  from  the  almost  unanimous  hostile 
criticism  of  the  bishops  of  his  own  church,  as  well  as  from 
the  action  of  the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel 
and  the  Society  for  the  Promotion  of  Christian  Knowledge. 
Both  these  organizations  had  given  aid  to  his  missionary  work, 
and  both  now  withdrew  their  support.  More  personal  pain 
we  may  suppose  him  to  have  suffered  by  the  loss  of  the  friend- 
ship of  F.  D.  Maurice.  Maurice  was  well  known  as  leader  of 
the  more  liberal  party  in  the  Church,  and  might  have  been 
expected  to  plead  for  toleration.  But  his  action  showed  what 
has  often  been  observed  elsewhere,  namely  that  those  most 
tenacious  in  defending  their  own  liberty  may  be  unwilling  to 
grant  liberty  to  others. 

The  incident  which  I  have  related  at  some  length  bears  on 
the  history  of  Old  Testament  interpretation  simply  because 
it  shows  how  a  mind  innocent  of  German  or  other  rationalism 
is  driven  to  take  the  critical  position  as  soon  as  it  makes  a 
careful  examination  of  the  facts  of  Scripture.  As  Colenso 
himself  observes,  he  advanced  nothing  new.  This  is  perhaps 
too  strong  a  statement,  for  his  exact  presentation  of  the 
mathematical  difficulties  was  more  striking  than  any  that  had 
preceded.  And  they  are  convincing.  It  would  be  interesting 
to  know  how  many  of  the  Bishops  of  the  Church  of  England 
in  this  twentieth  century  would  assent  to  the  judgment  of 
the  Bishop  of  Capetown, 

It  must  not  be  thought  that  English  opinion  was  entirely  in 
the  dark  concerning  critical  opinion  until  Colenso  so  emphati- 
cally called  attention  to  its  problems.  Essays  and  Reviews 
had  been  published  two  years  before  his  book  appeared,  and 
had  aroused  uneasiness  in  conservative  minds.  One  of  these 
essays  reproduced  Lessing's  thought  of  the  education  of  the 
race  as  a  gradual  process,  so  that  the  earliest  stages  of  revela- 
tion would  appear  imperfect  when  viewed  in  the  light  of  more 
advanced  ages.  Another  discussed  at  length  Bunsen's  Bib- 
lical Researches,  which  certainly  departed  from  the  traditional 


THE  BISHOP'S  PROBLEM  135 

views.  Finally  Jowett's  discussion  of  the  interpretation  of 
Scripture  took  broad  ground,  although  it  did  not  enter  specifi- 
cally upon  questions  of  Old  Testament  criticism.  It  may  be 
that  the  uneasiness  caused  by  these  essays  gave  strength  to 
the  agitation  against  Colenso.  Before  leaving  the  subject, 
we  may  notice  a  predecessor  whose  words  gave  comfort  and 
encouragement  to  our  Bishop,  and  whose  case  was  even  more 
remarkable  than  his.  This  man  was  Alexander  Geddes,  a 
Scottish  priest  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  He  made  a 
new  translation  of  the  Bible  into  English,  and  added  a  volume 
of  Critical  Remarks.^  Their  significance  is  the  same  that  we 
have  remarked  in  the  case  of  Colenso;  they  show  how  a  mind 
not  inclined  to  rationalism,  but  candid  and  reflective,  is  led 
by  an  unbiased  examination  of  the  phenomena  to  take  the 
critical  position.  Colenso  quotes  the  passage  in  which  he  found 
encouragement,  as  follows: 

May  I  blameless  examine  the  works  of  Christian  doctors  and  historians  by 
the  common  rules  of  criticism,  explode  their  sophistry,  combat  their  rash  as- 
sertions, arraign  them  of  credulity,  and  even  sometimes  question  their  veracity 
—  and  yet  be  obliged  to  consider  every  fragment  of  Hebrew  Scripture  for  a 
series  of  a  thousand  years,  from  Moses  to  Malachi,  every  scrap  of  prophecy, 
poesy,  minstrelsy,  history,  biography,  as  the  infallible  communications  of 
heaven,  oracles  of  divine  truth?  Truly  this  is  to  require  too  much  from  cre- 
dulity itself. 

That  Geddes  suffered  the  penalty  of  his  rashness,  and  was 
condemned  by  his  ecclesiastical  superiors,  will  cause  us  no 
surprise.  The  cases  of  Loisy  and  Tyrrell  are  fresh  in  our 
minds,  and  are  parallel  enough  to  need  no  elucidation. 

2  The  Holy  Bible  or  the  Books  Accounted  Sacred  by  Jews  and  Christians, 
two  volumes  containing  the  historical  books  (i  792-1 797).  The  Critical  Re- 
marks published  in  1800  are  on  the  Pentateuch. 


XII 
THE    SIGNIFICANCE   OF   WELLHAUSEN 

HISTORICAL  research  proceeds  on  the  hypothesis, 
first  that  from  such  remains  as  have  come  down  to 
us  it  is  possible  to  discover,  to  a  certain  extent,  what 
actually  happened  in  the  past;  and  secondly,  that  the  events 
of  the  past  can  be  traced  in  their  orderly  sequence,  so  as  to 
show  us  the  law  of  human  progress.  In  order  to  accomplish 
his  task,  therefore,  it  is  of  the  first  importance  that  the  his- 
torian arrange  the  documents  that  he  studies  in  their  proper 
order  of  time.  The  higher  criticism  which  has  been  so  much 
objected  to  when  applied  to  the  Bible,  is  simply  the  method 
by  which  the  literature  is  brought  into  this  proper  order.  The 
length  of  time  which  it  has  taken  the  critics  to  reach  this  end 
is  due  in  part  to  the  complicated  process  which  the  Hebrew 
Hterature  has  gone  through,  and  which  is  described  in  out- 
line in  the  first  of  these  essays,  in  part  to  the  Jewish  tradition 
which  in  an  uncritical  age  insisted  that  the  Mosaic  Code  was 
really  the  foundation  of  the  Hebrew  commonwealth,  and 
therefore  the  most  important  part  of  divine  revelation.  This 
tradition  passed  over  to  the  Church  and  became  one  of  its 
accepted  beliefs  to  interfere  with  which  was  regarded  with 
horror,  as  if  it  were  sacrilege.  Spinoza's  doubts  concerning 
the  authorship  of  the  books  ascribed  to  Moses  was  attributed 
to  his  'atheistic'  prejudice  against  all  revealed  religion.  Si- 
mon's demonstration  that  the  books  had  been  subject  to  the 
same  accidents  of  transmission  as  other  ancient  writings  was 
discounted,  at  least  among  Protestants,  by  the  fact  that  he  was 
a  Roman  Catholic.  Astruc  at  last  found  a  key  which  was 
apparently  allowed  to  pass  because  it  only  proved  (as  applied 
by  him,  that  is)  that  Moses  made  use  of  written  sources  older 

136 


THE   SIGNIFICANCE  OF   WELLHAUSEN     137 

than  his  own  time.  But  his  hypothesis  was  taken  up  by 
Eichhorn,  who  with  German  thoroughness  carried  the  analysis 
through  the  Pentateuch/ 

Eichhorn  seems  to  have  been  the  first  to  point  out  that  the 
'higher  criticism'  that  is,  literary  as  distinguished  from  textual 
criticism,  is  an  established  method  of  investigating  ancient 
writings.  It  is  unnecessary  to  give  details  of  his  analysis. 
The  two  main  streams  of  narrative  pointed  out  by  Astruc 
were  readily  separated,  and  the  method  so  commended  itself 
to  contemporary  scholars  that  they  at  once  threw  themselves 
into  the  work  of  analysis.  Ingenuity  was  in  fact  so  applied 
that  the  books  under  review  threatened  to  disintegrate  into 
a  number  of  heterogeneous  fragments.  This  phase  passed, 
however,  and  there  came  to  be  substantial  agreement  as  to 
the  Pentateuchal  sources.  IMeanwhile  the  chasm  which  opened 
between  Dogmatic  and  Biblical  Theology  was  bridged  by 
the  specific  definition  of  Gabler  as  already  related.  Here 
the  question  of  the  age  of  the  different  elements  which  have 
been  combined  in  our  Old  Testament  is  fundamental  and  it  is 
on  this  point  that  the  critics  were  long  in  reaching  an  agree- 
ment. It  came  to  be  admitted  that  four  sources  are  traceable 
in  the  Pentateuch,  the  most  important,  at  least  to  Jewish 
thinking,  being  the  one  known  as  P,  that  is  the  priestly  code 
contained  in  the  books  of  Leviticus  and  Numbers.  Since  this 
document  furnished  the  framework  into  which  the  others  had 
been  fitted,  it  was  natural  to  suppose  that  it  was  the  earliest  in 
point  of  time.  Ewald's  important  History  of  the  People  of 
Israel  was  vitiated  by  this  assumption.  Reflection  shows, 
however,  that  genealogical  and  statistical  material,  such  as 
characterizes  the  Priestcode,  is  a  comparatively  late  develop- 
ment, whereas  folklore,  such  as  we  find  in  the  patriarchal 
stories  of  Genesis,  is  more  primitive. 

The  merit  of  pointing  out  the  true  order  of  the  documents 

1  Emleitung  ins  Alte  Testament.  The  first  edition  which  I  have  not  seen 
was  published  in  1780,  second  edition  1790.  It  is  perhaps  significant  that  the 
only  work  of  Eichhorn  which  was  translated  into  English  was  an  essay  in 
which  he  argues  that  the  authors  of  the  Old  Testament  were  not  impostors 
(in  Essays  and  Dissertations  in  Biblical  Literature,  New  York,  1829). 


138    ESSJrS  IN  BIBLICAL  INTERPRETATION 

belongs  to  Vatke,  whose  book  "Religion  of  the  Old  Testament 
developed  according  to  the  Canonical  Books"  ^  appeared  in 
1835.  Vatke  was  a  thoroughgoing  disciple  of  Hegel,  and  his 
work  is  saturated  with  that  philosopher's  view  of  the  course 
of  human  history,  so  much  so  that  it  is  hardly  intelligible  to 
one  unacquainted  with  the  system.  The  significance  of  the 
author  does  not  lie  in  his  philosophy,  but  in  his  view  of  Israel's 
development.  Two  books  are  emphasized  by  him  as  decisive. 
These  are  Deuteronomy  and  Ezekiel.  First  of  all,  both  books 
are  later  than  the  time  of  the  great  Prophets,  Deuteronomy 
belonging  to  the  age  of  Josiah,  Ezekiel  of  course  to  the  Exile. 
Deuteronomy  had  been  correctly  dated  before,  but  the  bear- 
ing of  Ezekiel  on  the  question  had  been  overlooked.  On 
reflection  it  is  seen  that  this  prophet's  work  is  unintelligible 
if  there  was  a  ritual  law  already  in  existence.  What  he  does 
is  to  give  a  fully  developed  scheme  for  Israel's  future.  But, 
priest  as  he  is,  he  could  not  have  done  this  had  there  been  in 
existence  an  elaborate  legislation  such  as  is  contained  in 
Leviticus  and  Numbers.  What  he  would  have  done  in  that 
case  is  clear  —  he  would  have  referred  his  people  to  the  Law 
already  in  their  hands.  To  do  anything  else  would  have  been 
sacrilegious.  So  far  from  knowing  anything  of  such  a  law,  he 
asserts  that  the  law  given  in  the  desert  was  not  good.  The 
conclusion  of  Vatke  is  that  the  true  order  of  Israel's  legisla- 
tion is  Deuteronomy,  then  Ezekiel,  and  last  of  all  the  Priest- 
code.  This  conclusion  however  was  ignored  for  thirty  years 
and  more,  mainly  because  it  was  accompanied  by  specula- 
tion on  the  idea  of  history  and  the  self-realization  of  the  Ab- 
solute, couched  in  the  technical  language  of  the  Hegelian 
philosophy.  Moreover,  the  attention  of  conservative  theolo- 
gians having  been  called  to  the  progress  of  critical  inquiry, 
an  attempt  was  made  to  stem  the  tide,  and  for  some  time  re- 
actionary literature  held  the  centre  of  the  stage. 

The  protagonist  of  the  conservative  school  was  Hengsten- 
berg,  an  able  scholar  thoroughly  trained  in  the  orthodox  tra- 
dition, and  one  of  those  logical  natures  which  when  they  have 

2  The  first  volume  was  never  followed  by  a  second. 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  WELLHAUSEN     139 

adopted  a  system,  cannot  allow  a  single  point  in  it  to  be  ques- 
tioned, lest  the  whole  structure  fall  to  pieces.  His  Beitrdge 
were  directed  against  all  the  assertions  of  the  critics,  affirming 
the  whole  of  the  Pentateuch  to  be  the  work  of  Moses,  the 
whole  of  Isaiah  to  be  by  the  author  whose  name  comes  at 
the  head  of  the  book,  Daniel  to  have  been  written  by  Daniel 
himself,  and  the  whole  of  Zechariah  by  one  author.  To 
doubt  any  of  these  propositions  was  held  to  be  a  denial  of  the 
Christian  faith.  Moreover,  the  Old  Testament  he  held  to  be 
primarily  and  chiefly  a  book  of  prophecies  of  the  coming  of 
Christ.  To  prove  this  was  the  purpose  of  his  best  known 
work,  the  Christology  of  the  Old  Testament.^  The  presup- 
position of  this  work  is  indicated  by  the  title  and  is  set  forth 
with  all  desirable  distinctness  in  the  introduction.  It  is 
wholly  dogmatic,  asserting  that  the  incarnation  is  the  centre 
of  all  divine  institutions  for  the  salvation  of  fallen  man,  and 
that  the  Old  Testament  is  a  succession  of  revelations  designed 
to  keep  the  expectation  of  believers  fixed  on  that  event  still  in 
the  future.  In  other  words,  the  Old  Testament  is  made  a 
textbook  of  orthodox  Protestant  theology. 

The  influence  of  Hengstenberg  was  considerable,  perhaps 
more  marked  in  England  and  America  than  in  Germany.  For 
some  decades  the  German  literature  made  accessible  to  readers 
in  these  two  countries  was  that  of  the  conservative  school,  and 
the  hope  was  entertained  that  the  Churches  might  be  protected 
by  this  literature  from  the  inroads  of  rationalism.  In  fact, 
as  we  have  seen,  the  tone  in  both  countries  was  conservative, 
and  this  may  be  illustrated  by  the  fact  that  a  standard  work 
for  nearly  three-quarters  of  the  nineteenth  century  was  Home's 
Introduction,  and  that  Samuel  Davidson,  who  attempted  to 
introduce  some  of  the  critical  views  into  a  new  edition  of  that 
work  was  stigmatized  as  a  heretic,  and  removed  from  his  pro- 
fessorship in  the  Independent  College,  Manchester.  The 
prominence  of  Franz  Delitzsch  in  Germany,  and  the  preva- 

3  Christologie  des  Alten  Testaments  und  Commentar  iiber  die  Messianischen 
Weissagtingen  der  Propheten,  1829.  An  English  translation  appeared  in  1836, 
and  another  in  1871. 


I40    ESS^rS  IN    BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

Icnce  of  conservative  views  in  Great  Britain  and  this  country 
seemed  ominous  for  any  advance  in  Old  Testament  scholar- 
ship. It  is  for  this  reason  that  the  importance  of  Wellhausen 
should  be  borne  in  mind.  This  importance  consists  in  his 
forceful  and  lucid  presentation  of  the  view  advanced  by 
Vatke  forty  years  earlier.  Not  that  he  was  directly  dependent 
on  Vatke,  for  he  was  a  pupil  of  Ewald.  But  not  satisfied  with 
his  teacher's  solution  of  the  problem  of  Old  Testament  history, 
he  worked  over  the  material  afresh.  The  first  volume  of  his 
History  of  Israel*  was  the  result.  This  book  begins  at  once 
with  the  statement  of  the  problem  to  be  solved,  which  is 
whether  the  Law  contained  in  the  Pentateuch  is  the  point  of 
departure  for  the  history  of  ancient  Israel  or  for  the  history 
of  Judaism,  that  is  of  the  religious  community  which  sur- 
vived the  Babylonian  catastrophe.  Various  lines  of  argu- 
ment are  then  taken  up  and  are  found  to  converge  upon  the 
position  already  stated  by  Vatke. 

One  striking  example  must  impress  every  reader.  This  is 
the  account  of  the  crowning  of  the  young  king  Joash  as  related 
in  Kings,  and  also  in  Chronicles.  The  two  narratives  are 
printed  in  parallel  columns  and  the  lesson  is  plain  —  the 
Chronicler  has  allowed  his  preference  for  the  Levites  and 
his  scrupulosity  as  to  the  defilement  of  the  temple  to  color 
his  version,  so  as  to  make  the  incident  something  quite  dif- 
ferent from  that  related  by  the  earlier  author.  In  one  case 
the  young  king  is  placed  upon  the  throne  by  the  royal  body- 
guard, acting  under  the  direction  of  the  priest  of  the  temple. 
In  the  Chronicler's  version,  the  body-guard  does  not  appear, 
but  all  is  done  by  the  Levites,  and  special  care  is  taken  that 
none  but  consecrated  persons  shall  enter  the  sacred  building. 
The  significance  of  the  comparison  is  the  demonstration  it 
gives  that  between  the  composition  of  the  two  books  the 
priestly  point  of  view  has  come  into  force.  But  this  point  of 
view  is  exactly  that  of  the  Levitical  legislation,  contained  in 
the  middle  books  of  the  Pentateuch.     In  the  third  century 

*  As  it  first  appeared  (1878),  the  book  bore  the  title  Geschichte  Israels. 
Later  issues  changed  this  to  Prolegomena  zur  Geschichte  Israels. 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  WELLHAUSEN     141 

B.C.  (the  date  of  Chronicles)  a  Jewish  writer  could  not  con- 
ceive that  the  royal  body-guard,  made  up  of  laymen  and  prob- 
ably of  foreigners,  could  be  admitted  to  the  temple,  or  (what 
he  would  regard  as  worse)  that  the  chief  priest  could  make 
use  of  them  when  he  had  a  large  number  of  Levites  at  his  com- 
mand. The  conclusion  is  that  in  his  time  the  priestly  legis- 
lation was  fully  recognized,  but  that  when  the  account  in 
Kings  was  written,  which  could  not  have  been  much  before 
750  B.C.,  the  chief  priest  had  no  scruples  about  admitting  un- 
consecrated  persons  to  the  temple.  The  bearing  of  Ezekiel's 
regulation  on  the  question  is  obvious,  for  he  it  was  who  de- 
nounced the  pre-exilic  practice. 

This  is  only  one  of  several  lines  of  evidence  which  are  more 
distinctly  brought  out  in  Wellhausen's  work,  more  distinctly 
than  in  any  previous  discussion.  The  reception  of  the  book 
was  twofold:  conservative  scholars  accused  the  author  of  an 
evolutionary  bias  which  vitiated  his  discussion.  The  charge 
is  not  likely  to  weigh  very  heavily  in  these  days,  when  evo- 
lution is  widely  accepted  as  the  process  which  is  discoverable 
in  history  as  well  as  in  nature.  In  the  second  place,  the  alter- 
native between  the  traditional  theory  of  the  authorship  of 
the  sacred  books  was  put  in  this  form:  Either  Moses  (for  the 
crucial  point  was  still  the  authenticity  of  the  Pentateuch) 
wrote  the  books  attributed  to  him,  or  else  they  are  a  fraud 
and  a  forgery.  Similarly  the  demonstration  that  the  work  of 
more  than  one  author  was  contained  in  the  book  of  Isaiah  was 
met  with  the  same  alternative.  The  answer  is  of  course  that 
the  books  being  the  result  of  a  complicated  historical  process, 
the  main  thing  is  to  apprehend  the  process.  Doubtless  all  the 
authors,  editors,  and  compilers  acted  in  good  faith,  although 
their  methods  were  not  those  of  our  own  day.  The  charge  of 
approaching  their  subject  with  a  preconceived  bias  could  be 
brought  against  the  conservatives  as  we  have  already  seen 
illustrated  in  Hengstenberg.  But  recrimination  is  not  argu- 
ment. 

Wellhausen  generously  declines  to  claim  originality  for  him- 
self.   That  he  had  a  predecessor  in  Vatke  we  have  noticed, 


142    ESSJrS  IN  BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

although  Vatke's  presentation  was  in  such  form  that  it  did 
not  appeal  even  to  scholars.  The  correct  order  of  the  docu- 
ments had  been  suspected  by  Reuss,  though  he  had  not  ven- 
tured to  publish  his  view  because  it  differed  from  the  one 
generally  accepted.  Graf  also  had  had  an  inkling  of  the  same 
thing,  and  Kuenen  had  felt  his  way  to  the  Wellhausen  position 
about  the  same  time  with  his  German  contemporary.  When 
the  position  was  clearly  and  forcibly  presented  by  Wellhausen, 
nearly  all  scholars  who  recognized  the  legitimacy  of  applying 
critical  methods  to  the  Old  Testament  were  convinced.  Not 
only  in  Germany,  but  in  France,  Holland,  Great  Britain,  and 
America,  the  theory  made  its  way.  So  cautious  a  scholar 
as  Driver,  and  so  thoughtful  a  one  as  W.  Robertson  Smith 
adopted  it.  At  the  present  day  it  is  as  nearly  the  established 
theory  of  Old  Testament  history  as  can  be  expected  in  a  field 
where  many  men  are  at  work.  Boasts  that  it  has  been  refuted 
are  heard  every  now  and  then,  but  the  unprejudiced  observer 
will  discover  that  they  are  at  least  premature.  The  only 
attack  which  needs  to  be  considered  affirms  that  he  has  not 
given  due  weight  to  the  evidence  from  Babylonia  and  Assyria. 
The  claim  made  by  these  opponents  is  that  monotheism  is 
not  the  exclusive  possession  of  Israel,  but  is  found  in  Meso- 
potamia and  also  in  Egypt.  In  reply,  it  is  enough  to  say 
that,  allowing  the  more  advanced  thinkers  in  both  countries 
to  have  attained  something  like  a  monotheistic  belief,  such 
a  belief  had  no  influence  on  the  religion  of  the  people;  whereas 
in  Israel  the  striking  thing  is  that  after  a  long  evolution  the 
whole  nation  had  arrived  at  a  point  where  they  insisted  that 
loyalty  to  the  one  God  meant  rejection  of  all  polytheistic  and 
idolatrous  rites.  Wellhausen's  merit  was  that  on  the  basis  of 
the  literature  of  Israel  he  traced  the  process  by  which  this 
stage  of  religion  was  reached.  Thus  and  thus  alone,  certainly 
not  by  a  shadowy  Babylonian  or  Egyptian  monotheism,  was 
the  way  prepared  for  Christianity. 


XIII 

HISTORICAL   INTERPRETATION 

WITHOUT  claiming  that  Biblical  science  has  no 
more  to  learn,  we  may  pause  here  to  see  exactly 
what  may  now  be  fairly  regarded  as  the  assured 
results  of  the  process  we  have  been  tracing.  The  men  whose 
labors  we  have  examined  cannot  be  accused  of  being  obsessed 
])y  a  godless  evolutionary  theory.  They  include  loyal  members 
of  many  Christian  Churches  —  Simon,  Astruc,  Geddes  and 
Loisy  (Roman  Catholics),  Kuenen  and  Oort  (Dutch  Re- 
formed), Wellhausen,  Kautzsch  and  Kittel  (German  Protes- 
tants), Colenso  and  Driver  (Episcopalians),  W.  Robertson 
Smith,  Briggs  and  Francis  Brown  (Presbyterians) — not  to 
mention  many  now  living.  The  outline  of  Israel's  religious 
history  (for  this  is  our  main  concern)  on  which  these  men 
would  agree,  is  as  follows: 

Something  over  three  thousand  years  ago  a  few  Bedawin 
clans  sojourned  in  the  desert  south  of  Canaan.  Moved  by 
a  religious  as  well  as  an  economical  impulse,  they  attacked 
the  inhabitants  of  Palestine.  The  conquest  was  made  gradu- 
ally, sometimes  by  open  warfare,  but  to  a  considerable  extent 
by  peaceful  penetration,  in  which  the  newcomers  amalgamated 
with  the  older  inhabitants.  The  religion  which  they  brought 
with  them  was  the  worship  of  their  tribal  God,  but  in  Canaan 
they  learned  the  way  of  the  divinities  of  the  land,  adopting  the 
sanctuaries  and  ritual  of  the  older  inhabitants.  Protest 
against  this  syncretism  was  made  by  the  prophets,  some  of 
whom  were  uncompromising  adherents  of  the  old  nomadic 
religion,  some  were  moved  by  patriotism  and  a  desire  to  pre- 
serve Israel's  individuality,  some  were  social  reformers  who 
saw  that  the  will  of  God  is  ethical  rather  than  ritualistic.   At 

143 


144    ESSJrS  IN  BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

a  favorable  moment  the  prophetic  party  secured  the  aid  of 
Josiah,  king  of  Judah,  in  putting  through  a  reform  of  religion, 
which,  however,  was  followed  by  a  reaction.  The  calamity 
which  came  with  the  Babylonian  supremacy  was  construed 
as  punishment  for  this  reaction.  In  the  exile,  therefore,  the 
religious  leaders  devoted  their  efforts  to  a  more  thorough 
reconstruction  of  the  ritual,  with  the  idea  of  thus  protecting 
the  religion  from  contamination.  The  result  was  post-exilic 
Judaism,  which  was  confirmed  in  its  triumph  by  the  events 
of  the  Maccabean  struggle. 

This  presentation  of  the  history  is  based  on  the  critical 
examination  of  the  documents,  which  shows  that  the  literature 
is  correctly  arranged  in  the  following  order:  (i)  The  folk- 
stories  of  the  Patriarchs;  (2)  The  works  of  the  early  prophets, 
Amos,  Hosea,  and  Isaiah;  (3)  Deuteronomy;  (4)  Ezekiel; 
(5)  the  Priestly  stratum  of  the  Pentateuch.  To  test  the  theory 
we  may  try  several  lines  of  inquiry. 

I.   THE  PLACE   OF   V^^GRSHIP 

In  the  book  of  Kings  we  find  a  recurrent  phrase:  "The 
people  still  sacrificed  at  the  highplaces."  These  highplaces 
(bama,  plural  bamoth,  is  the  technical  name)  are  regarded 
by  the  author  as  illegitimate  sanctuaries,  for  to  him  the  one 
authorized  place  of  worship  is  the  temple  at  Jerusalem.  How 
many  of  these  shrines  there  were  is  indicated  by  Jeremiah, 
who  complains  that  they  were  on  every  high  hill  and  under 
every  green  tree.  But  the  idea  of  Jeremiah  and  the  author  of 
Kings  that  the  worship  at  these  places  was  a  sign  of  apostasy, 
the  people  having  received  a  specific  command  against  any 
but  the  one  sanctuary,  is  untenable.  There  are  in  fact  indi- 
cations that  the  highplaces  were  at  one  time  recognized  as 
legitimate.  When  Elijah  accuses  the  people  of  defection  he 
says  to  Yahweh,  the  God  of  Israel:  The  sons  of  Israel  have 
forsaken  thy  covenant,  thrown  down  thme  altars,  and  slain 
thy  prophets.  The  passage  implies  that  there  were  many 
such  altars  and  shows  that  the  defection  was  not  abandon- 


HISTORICAL   INTERPRETATION  145 

ment  of  the  one  altar  at  Jerusalem,  but  neglect  of  the  many 
shrines  throughout  the  country.  Even  in  this  case  the  accusa- 
tion is  too  sweeping,  for  the  prophet  is  informed  that  seven 
thousand  of  his  people  are  still  faithful.  Had  Elijah  supposed 
that  the  Law  insisted  upon  one  place  of  worship,  he  would 
have  used  very  different  language.  Moreover,  when  the  test 
came,  instead  of  exhorting  the  people  to  seek  Yahweh  at 
Jerusalem,  he  rebuilt  one  of  these  very  local  altars  and  in- 
voked the  presence  of  the  divinity  there.  When  Solomon 
would  inquire  the  will  of  God  he  went  to  Gibeon  and  sacri- 
ficed at  the  great  bama  a  thousand  burnt  offerings.  Since  he 
received  the  revelation  that  he  desired,  no  doubt  he  and  the 
people  were  confirmed  in  their  belief  that  this  at  any  rate 
was  a  place  at  which  God  could  be  worshipped.  The  author 
of  Kings  endeavors  to  excuse  the  act,  which,  on  his  principle, 
was  unjustified,  by  saying  that  the  temple  had  not  yet  been 
built.  But  this  is  a  mere  harmonistic  attempt,  for  the  Jerusa- 
lem sanctuary  had  been  chosen  and  consecrated  by  David. 
The  incident  confirms  what  has  been  said  about  the  legitimacy 
of  the  highplaces  certainly  down  to  the-  time  of  Solomon. 
Further  confirmation  is  given  by  the  historical  books.  David 
impaled  Saul's  descendants  "before  Yahweh"  in  Gideon;  Sam- 
uel sacrificed  at  the  bama  of  his  native  village;  in  the  time  of 
the  Judges  there  were  altars  at  Ophra,  at  Zorah,  at  Shiloh,  at 
Bethel  and  at  Mizpah,  not  to  speak  of  the  sanctuary  at  Dan 
which  was  served  by  a  descendant  of  Moses.  And  the  patri- 
archal stories  of  Genesis  show  that  many  of  these  shrines 
were  consecrated  by  the  fathers  of  the  nation.  Abraham 
built  altars  and  worshipped  at  Shechem,  at  Bethel,  at  the  oak 
of  Mamre,  and  at  Moriah.  Jacob  sacrificed  at  Beersheba,  at 
Mizpah,  at  Shechem  and  at  Bethel,  where  he  consecrated  a 
stone  pillar,  dedicating  it  to  the  divinity.  The  only  reason 
why  the  narrator  has  preserved  the  account  of  these  various 
acts  is  that  in  the  mind  of  the  people  these  shrines  possessed 
special  sanctity  on  account  of  their  association  with  these 
venerable  names. 

If  we  now  inquire  when  the  view  was  first  entertained  that 


146    ESSJTS  IN  BIBLICAL  INTERPRETATION 

only  one  place  of  worship  was  sanctioned  by  the  divine  law, 
we  inevitably  recall  to  mind  the  dramatic  event  in  the  reign 
of  King  Josiah,  the  detailed  account  of  which  is  contained  in 
II  Kings,  xxii  and  xxiii.  Here  we  read  that  in  accordance  with 
the  Book  of  Instruction  found  in  the  temple,  all  the  highplaces 
in  the  towns  of  Judah  were  desecrated,  and  king  and  people 
took  a  solemn  engagement  to  obey  the  commandments  of  the 
Book.  What  the  Book  was  is  tolerably  evident  from  the 
description  of  what  took  place.  Deuteronomy  alone,  and 
probably  Deuteronomy  in  a  shorter  form  than  the  one  in 
which  we  now  read  it,  answers  the  requirements  of  the  text. 
The  revolution  which  took  place  under  the  influence  of  this 
book,  however,  was  too  drastic  to  last,  especially  after  the 
tragic  death  of  the  king  who  led  in  it.  There  was,  therefore, 
a  reaction,  and  it  is  probable  that  the  popular  reverence  for 
the  local  sanctuaries  would  have  given  them  permanence  had 
not  the  Babylonian  siege  and  conquest  of  Jerusalem  inter- 
vened. This  startling  event  was  accounted  for  as  punish- 
ment for  disobedience  to  the  Book. 

It  was  on  this  ground  that  the  author  of  Kings  condemned 
the  worship  at  the  highplaces,  as  is  abundantly  clear  from 
his  narrative.  And  Ezekiel  agrees  with  him.  The  program 
of  the  prophet  provides  for  a  single  sanctuary,  and  for  its 
protection  from  defilement.  His  list  of  sins,  those  for  which 
Israel  was  punished,  includes  worship  on  the  highplaces.  Eze- 
kiel, therefore,  strengthens  the  position  taken  by  Deuteronomy. 
That  he  knew  nothing  of  a  specific  regulation  of  the  sacrifices, 
dating  back  to  Moses,  has  already  been  remarked.  And  the 
Priestly  stratum  of  the  Pentateuch  elaborates  the  plan  of 
Ezekiel,  only  transferring  it  to  the  Mosaic  age.  The  priestly 
writer  makes  the  work  of  Moses  consist  in  the  construction 
of  a  sanctuary  with  the  same  sort  of  regulations  as  those 
enacted  by  Ezekiel,  only  more  detailed.  In  other  words,  he 
assumes  that  the  priestly  scheme,  the  hierocracy,  dates  from 
the  beginning  of  the  national  life  —  something  of  which  all 
the  early  literature  is  profoundly  ignorant.  The  earliest  legis- 
lation, contained  in  the  Covenant  Code  (Ex.  xx:22-xxiii:33), 


HISTORICAL  INTERPRETATION  147 

specifically  authorizes  the  multitude  of  shrines  by  its  enact- 
ment: "An  altar  of  earth  shalt  thou  make  for  me,  and  shalt 
sacrifice  thereon  thy  burnt-offerings  and  thy  peace-offerings, 
thy  sheep  and  thine  oxen;  in  every  place  where  I  bring  my 
name  to  remembrance  I  will  come  to  thee  and  bless  thee.  And 
if  thou  make  me  an  altar  of  stones  thou  shalt  not  make  it  of 
hewn  stones,  for  if  thou  Hft  thy  tool  upon  it  thou  pollutest  it." 
It  is  difficult  to  conceive  a  more  distinct  confirmation  of  the 
patriarchal  custom.  When  Abraham  had  a  theophany  at  the 
Oak  of  Moreh  he  built  an  altar  to  the  Yahweh  who  appeared 
to  him.  When  Jacob  had  his  dream  at  Bethel,  he  not  only  set 
up  a  pillar  for  the  divinity,  but  also  erected  an  altar. 

What  the  law  of  Exodus  has  in  mind  is  the  recurrence  of 
such  indications  of  the  divine  presence  in  particular  spots, 
each  of  which  will  become  sacred  because  of  the  act  of  reve- 
lation. To  the  Israelite  God  was  not  a  God  afar  off,  and  He 
might  indicate  His  presence  by  a  remarkable  dream  of  some 
unusual  event  —  a  waking  vision  perhaps,  such  as  Gideon 
enjoyed.  After  receiving  the  commission  to  free  his  people 
this  hero  erected  an  altar  and  called  it  Yahweh-Shalom,  and 
the  writer  adds:  To  this  day  it  is  in  Ophra.  Where  a  man 
was  favored  with  such  a  vision  the  proper  acknowledgment 
was  a  sacrifice,  and  this  required  an  altar.  No  elaborate 
structure  could  be  raised  —  a  heap  of  earth  or  a  pile  of  stones 
was  sufficient,  and  such  an  altar  is  authorized  by  the  Covenant 
Code.  But  a  place  once  made  sacred  by  a  theophany  remained 
sacred  for  succeeding  generations.  The  resemblance  to  present- 
day  custom  in  Syria  strikes  the  observer  at  once,  for  there  also 
a  local  shrine  may  originate  in  the  vision  of  a  saint  or  fairy. 

The  practice  of  earlier  times  is  therefore  recognized  by  this 
legislation,  and  there  was  no  objection  to  the  multiplicity  of 
sanctuaries  until  the  time  of  Deuteronomy.  The  prophets, 
indeed,  objected  to  the  whole  popular  worship,  but  not  on  the 
ground  that  one  place  alone  was  authorized.  Masters  of 
language  as  they  were,  they  would  have  had  no  difficulty  in 
making  their  position  clear,  Isaiah  and  Micah  denounce  the 
ritual  of  the  temple  in  no  measured  terms,  and  imply  that 


148    ESSJTS  IN   BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

Jerusalem  is  no  better  —  rather  worse  if  anything  —  than  the 
other  sacred  places.  The  reason  why  Deuteronomy  wished 
the  temple  to  be  the  one  place  of  worship  was  that  the  multi- 
plicity of  local  highplaces  confused  the  minds  of  the  people 
as  to  the  One  National  God.  The  emphasis  with  which  this 
author  declares  that  the  Yahweh  who  is  the  God  of  Israel  is 
One  Yahweh  is  evidence  enough  of  his  main  interest.  There 
was  also  in  his  mind  the  suspicion  that  in  many  cases  the  lo- 
cal sanctuaries  had  been  taken  over  from  the  Canaanites,  and 
this  was  in  fact  the  case.  In  his  zeal  for  pure  Hebraism  he 
would  have  everything  Canaanite  exterminated.  To  a  certain 
extent  we  must  sympathize  with  him,  not  to  the  extent  of 
massacring  the  early  inhabitants,  but  in  the  interest  of  a  purer 
morality.  The  Canaanite  gods  whose  features,  in  some  cases 
at  least,  Yahweh  had  taken  on  were  patrons  of  agriculture, 
and  therefore  of  animal  and  vegetable  fruitfulness.  The 
prosperity  of  the  crops  was  thought  to  be  due  to  them,  as  we 
see  when  Hosea  represents  the  personified  Israel  saying:  ''I 
will  go  after  my  lovers  who  give  me  my  bread  and  my  wine, 
my  wool  and  my  flax."  The  kind  of  worship  which  was  sup- 
posed to  be  grateful  to  these  divinities  is  too  well  known  to 
be  described  here,  and  it  was  the  license  connected  with  the 
festivals  of  the  harvest  and  the  vintage  which  caused  the 
prophetic  reaction.  The  Deuteronomist  thought  that  by  re- 
stricting the  worship  to  the  one  chief  sanctuary,  not  only  would 
the  uniqueness  of  Yahweh  be  emphasized,  but  under  super- 
vision of  the  royal  police  abuses  could  be  held  in  check.  The 
reform  introduced  by  Deuteronomy  was  simply  carried  further 
by  Ezekiel,  and  elaborated  by  the  Priestcode. 

This  is  one  line  which  confirms  the  results  of  the  critical 
analysis,  and  it  will  not  do  to  say  that  the  critics  started  out 
with  a  preconceived  conception  of  Israel's  religious  develop- 
ment and  made  their  analysis  of  the  documents  conform  to 
that.  No  one  of  the  many  critics  who  occupied  themselves 
in  separating  the  sources  had  any  clear  idea  of  the  significance 
of  the  highplaces,  or  of  the  bearing  of  the  Covenant  Code  on 
the  questions  they  were  discussing,  until  the  analysis  being 


HISTORICAL  INTERPRETATION  149 

completed,  the  religious  development  stood  out  with  the  dis- 
tinctness which  I  have  tried  to  describe. 


II.    SACRIFICIAL    WORSHIP 

To  cut  the  throat  of  a  lamb,  catch  the  blood  in  a  bowl, 
sprinkle  it  on  a  mound  of  earth  or  a  pile  of  stones,  then  burn 
part  or  all  of  the  flesh  on  that  same  mound  does  not  seem  to 
the  modern  man  an  appropriate  way  of  approaching  the  di- 
vinity. His  ancestors  thought  differently,  as  is  shown  by  the 
prevalence  of  animal  sacrifice  all  over  the  world.  So  far  as 
the  Old  Testament  is  concerned  it  is  clear  that  this  is  the 
established  form  of  worship.  The  question  with  which  we  are 
immediately  concerned  is  whether  the  order  of  the  documents 
indicated  by  the  critical  analysis  enables  us  to  trace  any  de- 
velopment in  the  sacrificial  ritual.  Our  answer  will  in  this 
case  depend  somewhat  on  our  theory  of  development.  Does 
ritual  begin  by  being  complex  and  then  become  simple,  or  does 
the  simple  stage  come  first?  Observation  of  Christian  his- 
tory seems  to  favor  the  second  alternative.  The  unpretend- 
ing Eucharist  of  the  Apostles  has  grown  into  the  elaborate 
sacrifice  of  the  Mass.  Without  insisting  that  this  case  is  de- 
cisive, let  us  follow  the  history  of  sacrifice  as  it  reveals  itself 
in  the  documents  at  our  command. 

The  author  to  whom  we  attribute  the  earliest  stratum  of  the 
Pentateuchal  narrative  (the  Yahwist,  J)  assumes  that  sacri- 
fice dates  from  the  beginnings  of  human  history.  Cain 
brought  of  the  fruits  of  the  ground  and  Abel  brought  of  the 
firstlings  of  the  flock  and  of  their  fat,  an  offering  to  Yahweh. 
The  word  here  used  for  offering  (minha)  means  simply  a 
gift,  and  all  that  we  can  gather  from  the  passage  is  that  the 
sons  of  Adam  paid  their  respects  to  the  divinity  as  the  oriental 
pays  his  respects  to  a  superior,  that  is  by  bringing  a  present. 
The  noteworthy  thing  is  that  Abel's  gift  was  acceptable  and 
Cain's  was  not.  No  reason  is  given  for  the  preference,  but  it 
may  be  allowable  to  conclude  that  the  author  means  to  assert 
that  the  animal  offering  is  the  one  most  proper  for  a  religious 


150    ESSJrS  IN  BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

ceremony.  Underlying  this  may  be  the  feeling  that  the 
shepherd  is  favored  by  the  God  of  Israel,  rather  than  the  cul- 
tivator of  the  ground.  The  next  mention  of  sacrifice  occurs 
in  the  story  of  the  deluge  where  Noah  provides  an  extra 
number  of  clean  animals  (that  is  animals  fit  for  sacrifice), 
and  offers  a  burnt-offering  from  them  as  soon  as  he  leaves  the 
ark.  Here  we  read  that  the  divinity  inhaled  the  sweet  savor 
and  resolved  no  more  to  curse  the  soil.  The  fire-offering  being 
sublimated  into  vapor  is  grateful  to  the  god,  doubtless  be- 
cause it  is  his  food.  Very  late  authors  found  it  necessary  to 
combat  the  idea  that  God  drank  the  blood  and  ate  the  flesh  of 
the  sacrifice.  In  the  early  stages  of  belief  this  must  have  been 
the  current  conception. 

While  the  idea  of  a  gift  underlies  the  offering,  it  is  probable 
that  another  conception  was  soon  combined  with  it.  In  tribal 
society  every  man's  hand  is  against  every  other  man  except 
those  of  his  kin  or,  as  he  would  say,  of  his  blood.  But  where 
the  natural  tie  of  blood  does  not  exist,  an  artificial  one  may 
be  created.  In  the  most  primitive  stage  this  is  done  by  ming- 
ling the  blood  of  the  parties.  At  a  more  advanced  stage  the 
same  end  was  accomplished  by  sprinkling  the  parties  with  the 
blood  of  a  sacrificial  animal.  At  this  stage  we  find  our  nar- 
rative, for  the  covenant  at  Sinai  is  solemnized  by  sprinkling 
the  blood  of  the  sacrifice  on  the  altar  (representative  of  the 
divinity)  and  on  the  people.  In  all  this  there  is  no  thought 
of  statutory  regulation  of  worship,  though  the  obligation  to 
observe  the  three  agricultural  festivals  was  taken  as  part  of 
the  covenant.  How  these  were  observed  is  made  known  by 
the  story  of  Elkanah.  He  brought  his  offering  to  Shiloh,  the 
tribal  sanctuary,  and  after  the  portion  of  Yahweh  had  been 
duly  burned,  used  the  rest  of  the  flesh  in  a  banquet  at  which 
the  members  of  his  family  received  each  his  portion.  Other 
worshippers  did  the  same  and  that  the  bounds  of  sobriety 
were  often  passed  is  indicated  by  the  suspicion  of  the  priest 
that  a  woman  who  prayed  inaudibly  was  intoxicated.  The 
whole  narrative  indicates  that  there  had  been  no  rigorous 
regulation  of  the  sacrifices  such  as  we  read  in  the  priestly 


HISTORICAL  INTERPRETATION  151 

literature.  This  impression  is  confirmed  by  the  greater 
prophets.  Amos  denies  that  sacrifice  had  been  offered  in  the 
wilderness,  and  Jeremiah  specifically  asserts  that  the  divine 
commands  did  not  concern  matters  of  this  kind.  Had  Isaiah 
known  of  a  ritual  law,  he  would  certainly  have  called  atten- 
tion to  it,  instead  of  inquiring:  Who  has  required  this  at  your 
hands?  Plainly  the  whole  sacrificial  system,  if  system  it  can 
be  called,  was  based  on  usage  and  not  on  a  revealed  law. 

Deuteronomy,  as  we  have  seen,  was  exercised  in  mind  by 
the  abuses  that  went  on  at  the  country  sanctuaries.  Here  the 
holy  days  had  degenerated  into  holidays,  and  the  eating  and 
drinking  before  Yahweh  was  simply  an  occasion  for  gross 
licentiousness.  The  same  thing  was  true  in  Jerusalem  to  be 
sure,  but  in  Jerusalem  there  was  some  hope  that  things  could 
be  kept  more  decent.  To  do  away  with  the  forms  of  worship 
to  which  the  people  were  accustomed  was  impracticable.  The 
people  were  still  to  eat  and  drink  and  rejoice  before  Yahweh, 
bringing  their  offerings,  tithes,  and  firstlings.  But  one  signifi- 
cant concession  is  made.  If  the  people  desire  to  eat  flesh 
and  cannot  conveniently  take  the  journey  to  the  central  sanc- 
tuary, they  are  given  permission  to  slay  an  animal  at  home. 
The  plain  implication  is  that  hitherto  all  slaying  of  animals 
for  food  had  been  sacrificial.  When  there  was  an  altar  in 
every  village  it  would  be  no  hardship  to  bring  the  animal 
there,  give  Yahweh  the  blood  and  fat,  and  take  the  flesh 
home.  But  when  the  one  sanctuary  was  at  Jerusalem  it  was 
too  much  to  expect  that  every  animal  should  be  brought  to 
the  altar.    Hence  the  innovation. 

The  third  step  was  taken  by  Ezekiel,  and  his  view  of  sac- 
rifice shows  an  entirely  new  feature.  We  can  reproduce  the 
thought  of  the  prophet  by  remembering  the  denunciations  of 
the  earlier  seers,  according  to  which  the  exile  was  punishment, 
inflicted  by  an  angry  God.  But  Ezekiel  was  a  priest,  and  to 
the  priestly  mind  the  sin  for  which  the  people  were  punished 
was  violation  of  the  ritual.  His  accusation  is  that  the  land  had 
been  defiled.  The  underlying  thought  is  that  the  sanctity  of 
Yahweh  and  His  land  must  be  guarded  from  profanation.    The 


152    ESSJrS   IN   BIBLICAL   INTERPRETJTION 

things  which  trespass  on  this  divine  attribute  are  in  our  view 
either  violations  of  morahty,  Hke  oppression  of  the  poor,  or  of 
ritual,  like  eating  things  sacrificed  to  idols.  To  Ezekiel  they  are 
all  ritual,  for  he  makes  no  distinction  between  profaning  the 
Sabbath  and  eating  at  the  highplaces,  on  one  hand,  and  dis- 
obedience to  the  commands  given  in  Deuteronomy  on  the 
other.  But  the  sanctity  thus  violated  may  be  restored  by 
ritual  means,  and  once  restored  must  be  protected  by  the  same 
means.  What  these  means  are  is  made  known  by  the  sketch 
of  the  restored  commonwealth.  This  is  in  the  fullest  sense  an 
ecclesiastical  organization.  The  nation  will  find  its  reason 
for  existence  in  the  service  of  the  sanctuary.  Its  central  point 
is  the  temple,  the  inner  room  in  which  possesses  the  highest 
degree  of  the  mysterious  quality  which  separates  the  divine 
from  the  human.  Into  this  room,  therefore,  only  the  most 
sacred  person,  the  Highpriest,  may  enter,  and  that  only  on 
rare  occasions  and  with  elaborate  precautions.  The  anteroom 
is  open  only  to  the  priests,  the  inner  court  only  to  the  Levites, 
and  the  outer  court  to  the  people,  on  condition  that  they  are 
ritually  pure. 

But  since  the  world  is  full  of  things  that  may  interfere  with 
the  sacred  quality  of  the  building  and  its  implements,  regular 
purifications  must  be  made.  It  is  here  that  the  sacrifices  take 
their  part  in  Ezekiel's  scheme.  In  the  earlier  literature  we 
have  learned  of  burnt-offerings  and  peace-offerings,  joyous 
in  their  nature.  In  Ezekiel  these  are  to  be  continued,  but 
they  take  the  second  place,  whereas  much  prominence  is  given 
to  the  sin-offering  of  which  the  preexilic  writers  say  very  little. 
The  reason  of  the  new  emphasis  is  the  importance  which 
blood  plays  in  the  ritual.  Always  the  portion  of  the  divinity, 
it  possessed  the  power  of  counteracting  impurity.  Hence  its 
use  to  remove  defilement.  Sprinkled  on  the  walls  of  the 
temple,  on  the  implements  of  service,  and  even  on  the  Ark  of 
the  Covenant,  it  would  restore  their  lost  or  impaired  sanctity. 
The  sin-offerings  are  so  called,  because  the  blood  taken  from 
them  removes  sin,  that  is,  ritual  defilement,  unsins  we  might 
say,  the  objects  or  persons  to  which  it  is  applied. 


HISTORICAL   INTERPRETATION  153 

The  ideas  of  Ezekiel  were  taken  up  and  elaborated  by  the 
compilers  of  the  priestly  literature.  What  these  writers  did 
was  to  gather  up  everything  which  the  priestly  tradition  had 
preserved  concerning  this  matter  of  clean  and  unclean,  and 
combine  the  various  data  into  a  single  code.  These  authors 
no  doubt  believed  that  the  traditions  dated  back  to  the 
earliest  period,  and  since  Moses  was  the  founder  of  Israel's 
reUgion,  they  thought  themselves  justified  in  attributing  them 
to  him.  The  Talmudists,  as  we  saw,  were  similarly  convinced 
that  the  Oral  Law  dated  from  Sinai.  Probably  it  is  intentional 
that  the  Priestly  narrative  makes  no  mention  of  sacrifice  until 
the  time  of  Moses.  If  true  worship  means  presentation  of 
sacrifice  at  the  one  legitimate  sanctuary,  it  could  not  be 
offered  until  that  sanctuary  was  erected,  and  if  the  sacrifice 
must  be  presented  by  duly  consecrated  persons,  these  persons 
must  first  be  chosen  and  set  apart.  According  to  the  account 
in  the  priestly  document,  Moses'  chief  work  was  to  erect  the 
tabernacle,  then  to  consecrate  Aaron  and  his  sons,  and,  after 
this  was  done,  to  receive  and  promulgate  the  regulations  con- 
cerning the  sacrifices. 

Such,  according  to  the  critical  theory,  was  the  order  of  de- 
velopment of  Israel's  ritual.  The  reader  must  judge  whether 
it  confirms  what  has  already  been  said  in  connection  with  the 
place  of  worship. 

III.   THE  PRIESTHOOD 

In  examining  the  third  line  of  argument  we  will  reverse 
the  order  and  begin  with  the  priestly  document  which  we 
have  just  been  discussing.  The  picture  it  presents  is  as  fol- 
lows: When  Moses  went  up  to  the  Mount  he  received  specific 
directions  to  make  a  sanctuary,  in  order  that  the  divinity 
might  dwell  among  the  people.  A  plan  of  the  building  was 
shown  him  and  elaborate  directions  concerning  the  materials 
and  dimensions  were  given.  The  appropriate  furniture  and 
the  dress  of  the  priests  were  also  described,  as  well  as  the  rite 
of  consecration  by  which  the  priests  were  to  be  inducted  into 
office.    The  command  was  duly  communicated  to  the  people 


154    ESSJTS  IN  BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

and  the  work  was  carried  out.  When  the  sanctuary  and  its 
servants  were  ready  the  law  of  sacrifice  was  given,  as  we  have 
seen.  It  will  be  remembered  that  in  the  theory  of  this  writer, 
Israel  came  out  of  Egypt  a  full  grown  nation  numbering  two 
millions  of  people.  We  are  not  now  concerned  with  the  me- 
chanical difficulties  of  the  situation  except  in  one  respect.  We 
read  that  a  census  was  taken,  and  the  Levites  were  selected 
for  the  service  of  the  sanctuary,  twenty-two  thousand  in  num- 
ber. The  discrepancy  between  the  three  or  five  priests  and 
the  twenty  thousand  assistants,  need  not  be  dwelt  upon.  What 
is  of  interest  is  the  sharp  distinction  made  between  priests  and 
Levites.  The  story  of  Korah  points  the  lesson  that  members 
of  the  inferior  order  must  not  aspire  to  priestly  prerogatives, 
for  Korah  and  his  companions  being  Levites,  trespassed  by 
claiming  the  right  to  act  as  priests.  The  test  was  made  by 
allowing  them  to  use  the  censers,  whereupon  fire  from  heaven 
destroyed  them.^  Moreover,  the  Levites  are  denied  access  to 
the  tabernacle  and  are  not  allowed  to  see  its  furniture.  When 
camp  is  broken  the  priests  are  to  cover  the  Ark,  the  table,  and 
the  implements  of  service,  and  the  Levites  who  carry  the 
vessels  take  charge  of  them  only  when  this  has  been  done. 
Otherwise  the  sight  of  them  will  be  fatal  (Num.  iv:i5).  In 
line  with  this  is  the  exact  regulation  of  the  service  in  other 
particulars,  enforced  again  by  an  object  lesson,  for  Nadab  and 
Abihu,  though  legitimate  priests,  perish  because  their  incense 
is  not  correctly  presented.  The  incident  is  made  the  occa- 
sion of  cautioning  the  father  and  brothers  of  the  dead  men 
not  to  mourn  for  them,  lest  thus  they  defile  themselves. 

An  ecclesiastical  establishment  of  some  thousands  of  per- 
sons must  have  adequate  material  support,  and  we  are  not 
surprised  when  this  author  provides  for  this  need.  He  enacts 
that  every  Israelite  shall  give  to  the  clergy  a  tenth  of  his  gross 
income,  as  well  as  the  first-fruits  of  field  and  orchard  and 
firstlings  of  the  flock.     Certain  parts  of  the  sacrifices  go  to 

1  Numbers  xvi.  The  account  is  now  confused  with  another  in  which 
Dathan  and  Abiram  are  the  leaders,  but  the  priestly  sections  are  easily  dis- 
coverer* 


HISTORICAL   INTERPRETATION  155 

the  priests  as  do  the  freewill  offerings.  It  is  ordained  further 
that  forty-eight  cities  to  be  taken  from  the  Canaanites  are  to 
be  assigned  to  the  sacred  clan.  If  the  plan  can  be  carried  out, 
the  clergy  will  have  no  reason  to  complain  of  insufficient  sup- 
port. The  historians  of  priestly  inclination  suppose  that  this 
elaborate  scheme  was  actually  promulgated  by  Moses,  and  so 
far  as  was  in  his  power,  was  actually  put  into  effect  by  him. 
The  historical  difficulty  comes  when  we  discover  that  the 
whole  elaborate  organization  appears  nowhere  in  the  rest  of 
the  literature  until  we  come  to  the  time  of  the  Chronicler. 
Aside  from  a  few  allusions  to  Levites,  some  of  which  are  evi- 
dent interpolations  in  the  text,  the  narratives  of  Judges,  Sam- 
uel, and  Kings  betray  no  knowledge  of  this  alleged  church- 
state.  No  distinction  between  priests  and  Levites  is  indi- 
cated. The  Highpriest  is  conspicuous  by  his  absence.  The 
cities  theoretically  given  to  the  Levites  are  found  to  be  in 
possession  of  other  tribes,  and  no  protest  or  rebuke  is  re- 
corded. The  crucial  point,  however,  is  not  that  priests  are 
altogether  unknown  to  the  narrative,  or  that  Levites  do  not 
occasionally  appear.  It  is  that  no  such  sharp  line  of  distinc- 
tion is  drawn  as  is  enforced  by  the  Priestcode.  Only  when  we 
come  to  Ezekiel  do  we  find  intimations  of  such  a  line.  He 
indeed  is  specific  enough.  Speaking  in  the  name  of  Yahweh, 
he  says:  "House  of  Israel,  many  are  your  abominations  in 
that  you  brought  foreigners,  uncircumcised  in  heart  and  un- 
circumcised  in  flesh,  into  my  house  to  profane  it  when  you 
offered  my  bread,  the  fat  and  the  blood,  and  you  thus  nullified 
my  covenant  by  all  your  abominations."  The  sequel  com- 
mands that  henceforth  no  uncircumcised  person  shall  enter 
the  sanctuary,  but  the  Levites  who  had  been  unfaithful  to 
Yahweh  in  that  they  had  served  at  the  highplaces,  are  now 
to  undertake  the  menial  offices  of  the  temple.  Further,  it  is 
enjoined  that  the  sons  of  Zadok  shall  be  priests  in  possession 
of  the  higher  offices.  All  this  is  promulgated  as  something 
entirely  new.  But  in  fact  it  puts  the  stamp  of  approval  on 
an  arrangement  already  in  existence  in  the  Jerusalem  temple 
when  the  city  fell.     The  exigency  came  when  Deuteronomy 


156    ESSJTS  IN  BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

was  made  the  law  of  the  land.  At  that  time  the  country  sanc- 
tuaries were  desecrated  and  their  priests  were  thrown  out  of 
their  employment.  The  Deuteronomists  endeavored  to  pro- 
vide for  them  by  enacting  that  they  should  come  to  Jerusa- 
lem and  be  attached  to  the  temple.  But  the  descendants  of 
Zadok  were  already  in  office  there,  and  were  not  minded  to 
take  colleagues  who  must  share  the  emoluments  of  the  great 
sanctuary.  The  result  was  that  the  country  priests,  Levites, 
were  admitted  to  the  minor  offices  as  door-keepers  and  sextons. 
This  Ezekiel  was  willing  to  see  continued,  for  after  all  is  said, 
the  Levites  were  consecrated  persons,  better  than  foreign 
slaves.  The  Deuteronomist,  however,  knew  no  distinction 
between  classes  of  temple  servants.  He  says  in  so  many  words 
that  the  whole  tribe  of  Levi  was  chosen  to  carry  the  Ark,  to 
stand  before  Yahweh,  to  bless  in  His  name,  and  to  serve  Him. 
But  this  is  just  the  duty  and  privilege  of  the  priests. 

The  testimony  of  Deuteronomy  is  significant  in  another 
direction.  It  knows  nothing  of  the  elaborate  taxes  by  which 
the  priestly  clan  was  to  receive  its  support.  It  regards  the 
whole  caste  as  dependent  on  the  charity  of  the  community. 
The  author  exhorts  his  readers  to  remember  the  widow,  the 
orphan,  and  the  Levite  in  the  distribution  of  the  tithes.  The 
assumption  is  that  the  tithe  is  at  the  discretion  of  the  owner 
so  long  as  he  does  not  selfishly  appropriate  it  to  his  own  use. 
Even  this  he  might  do  if  he  brought  it  to  the  sanctuary  and 
there  made  it  the  material  for  his  festival  banquet.  There  is 
no  question  of  a  tax  levied  for  the  support  of  the  clergy. 
All  that  they  can  claim  is  a  share  (left  undefined)  in  the  good 
things.  And  in  the  same  connection  we  are  told  that  the 
reason  for  the  poverty  of  the  clan  is  that  they  have  not  re- 
ceived any  landed  property  —  a  direct  contradiction  to  what 
the  Priestcode  ordains.  The  inference  forces  itself  upon  us  — 
the  regulations  of  the  Priestcode  were  unknown  to  the  Deu- 
teronomist. And  if  we  go  back  to  the  Covenant  Code  we  shall 
find  that  priests  are  not  mentioned  at  all. 

It  may  be  said  indeed,  that  the  mention  in  this  document 


HISTORICAL   INTERPRETATION  1 57 

of  first  fruits  and  festival  offerings  implies  a  priesthood  of 
some  kind.  But  this  is  far  from  obvious.  The  mention  of 
tithes  in  the  account  of  Jacob's  dream  might  at  first  sight  be 
construed  in  the  same  way.  But  knowledge  of  oriental  custom 
shows  that  an  attendant  at  the  shrine  is  not  necessary.  The 
offering  is  brought  before  the  divinity,  represented  by  the 
sacred  stone  or  a  monument  of  some  kind,  and  there  con- 
sumed in  a  feast  at  which  the  sacrifice  is  eaten  by  the  offerer, 
his  family,  and  his  guests,  the  god  receiving  his  share.  It  is 
implied  in  Jacob's  experience  that  there  was  no  priest  at 
Bethel;  for  the  sacredness  of  the  spot  was  not  known  until 
he  discovered  it  by  his  vision.  Abraham,  Isaac  and  Jacob 
erected  altars  and  offered  sacrifice  without  the  intervention 
of  a  priest.  At  the  covenant  offering  at  Sinai  the  sacrificers 
are  the  young  men  of  the  tribes,  although  both  Moses  and 
Aaron  are  present.  One  passage  indeed  in  the  patriarchal 
narratives  seems  to  imply  the  presence  of  a  priest.  This  is 
the  one  where  Rebecca  'inquired  of  God.'  The  phrase  is  the 
one  used  elsewhere  of  inquiring  by  means  of  the  oracle,  and 
the  oracle  was  manipulated  by  an  expert,  that  is  a  priest.  This 
is  abundantly  confirmed  by  the  Biblical  texts;  for  the  business 
of  the  priest  is  to  impart  Tora,  that  is  instruction  as  to  what 
is  pleasing  to  the  divinity  or  the  reverse,  and  this  he  does  by 
means  of  the  oracle. 

Our  conclusion  is  that  in  the  earliest  period  the  institution 
of  the  priesthood  was  spontaneous  and  loosely  organized;  that 
in  the  Deuteronomic  period  an  attempt  was  made  to  bring 
it  into  connection  with  the  sole  legitimate  sanctuary,  the  one 
at  Jerusalem;  that  Ezekiel  sanctioned  the  closer  organization, 
enjoining  the  division  of  the  guild  into  two  classes;  that  the 
Priestcode  carried  the  organization  still  further  and  endeav- 
ored to  make  the  clergy  economically  independent.  In  other 
words  the  order  of  the  documents  ascertained  by  the  critical 
process  gives  us  an  intelligible  account  of  the  growth  of  this 
institution.  This  third  line  of  inquiry,  therefore,  confirms  the 
conclusions  already  reached  as  to  the  reliability  of  the  analysis. 


158     ESSJrS  IN   BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

IV.  ORIGINALITY  OF  THE  PROPHETS 

Hitherto  we  have  considered  only  incidentally  the  group  of 
books  which  bear  the  names  of  Prophets.  That  these  books 
present  problems  similar  to  those  we  have  been  discussing  is 
evident  at  a  glance.  The  Book  of  the  Twelve,  Minor  Prophets 
we  call  them,  is  made  up  of  a  number  of  compositions  of  widely 
different  dates.  Isaiah  is  the  name  given  to  a  similar  complex 
of  discourses  and  poems.  For  our  present  purpose  we  need 
note  only  that  by  common  consent  Amos  is  the  oldest  of  the 
group,  Hosea  coming  next,  followed  by  Isaiah  and  Micah. 
Jeremiah's  synchronism  with  the  Babylonian  troubles  is  suffi- 
ciently attested  by  his  book,  and  that  Ezekiel  lived  in  the 
exile  he  himself  tells  us.  The  Jewish  theory,  which  has  not 
altogether  died  out,  is  that  these  preachers  were  expounders 
of  the  Mosaic  Law,  that  is,  of  the  Pentateuch.  This  view  is  a 
part  of  the  tradition  which  holds  that  a  complete  and  final 
code,  moral  and  ritual,  was  delivered  to  Moses  and  written 
down  by  him,  promulgated  also  with  the  most  solemn  sanc- 
tions. This  code  is  of  perpetual  obligation  and  all  that  the 
faithful  Jew  has  to  do  to  obtain  the  favor  of  God  is  to  study  it 
and  make  clear  to  himself  what  it  enjoins,  then  to  obey  its  in- 
junctions. The  only  literary  activity  for  which  such  an 
elaborate  code  leaves  room  is  the  activity  of  the  scribe,  the 
man  who  studies  the  statute  and  teaches  others  what  it  re- 
quires. Such  activity  we  have  already  found  in  our  discus- 
sion of  legalistic  interpretation.  That  it  differs  from  what  we 
find  in  the  books  of  the  prophets  is  clear.  No  more  striking 
contrast  can  be  imagined  than  the  contrast  between  these 
books  and  the  collection  which  we  know  as  the  Talmud. 

We  have  found  that  the  point  of  view  of  the  Priestcode  and 
that  of  the  author  of  Chronicles  are  similar.  The  Chronicler 
can  give  us  some  idea  of  what  the  prophets  would  have  said 
had  they  had  the  authentic  code  of  the  Pentateuch  in  their 
hands.  His  judgment  on  the  northern  tribes  is  that  their 
sin  consisted  in  forsaking  the  one  legitimate  sanctuary  at 
Jerusalem.     To  enforce  the  lesson  he  introduces  the  prophet 


HISTORICAL   INTERPRETATION  159 

Abijah  rebuking  Jeroboam  for  this  sin.  The  charge  is  that 
this  king  has  driven  out  the  priests,  the  sons  of  Aaron,  and  the 
Levites,  whereas  in  Jerusalem  the  legitimate  priests  conduct 
the  service  according  to  the  Law  (II  Chron.  xiiiig-ii).  On 
the  other  hand  Jehoshaphat  of  Judah  is  commended  because 
he  sent  priests  and  Levites  throughout  the  cities  of  Judah  with 
the  Book  of  the  Law  in  their  hands  to  teach  the  people 
(xvii:7-9).  This  is  of  course  what  should  have  been  done  in 
case  there  were  a  divinely  sanctioned  code  in  existence;  and 
the  neglect  of  such  action  should  have  been  the  subject  of  the 
rebuke  of  the  prophets.  But  the  outstanding  fact  about  the 
prophets  is  that  they  utter  no  such  rebuke.  They  never  ap- 
peal to  the  Mosaic  standard,  and  the  name  of  Moses  occurs 
only  once  in  the  book  of  a  preexilic  prophet.  The  English 
reader  does  not  quite  realize  the  state  of  the  case,  because  where 
he  finds  the  word  law  in  his  Bible  he  instinctively  thinks  of  the 
Pentateuch.  But  the  Hebrew  word  tora  which  is  rendered  in 
this  way  would  better  be  translated  instruction  or  decision. 
In  what  is  probably  the  earliest  account  of  Moses  which  we 
have  we  find  him  giving  decisions  on  questions  submitted  to 
him.  This  was  before  he  had  received  any  code  properly 
so  called,  although  the  narrative  assumes  that  questions  will 
arise  on  which  the  people  need  instruction.  All  our  documents 
assume  that  one  of  the  duties  of  the  priest  is  the  giving  of 
tora,  that  is  instruction,  on  matters  of  ritual.  The  nature  of 
such  questions  is  made  clear  by  Haggai,  who  is  commanded  to 
put  to  the  priest  this  inquiry:  "If  one  carry  sacred  (that  is, 
sacrificial)  flesh  in  the  skirt  of  his  garment,  and  then  with  his 
skirt  touch  bread  or  broth  or  wine  or  oil  or  any  food,  will  it 
(the  food)  become  sacred?"  The  point  of  inquiry  is  the  con- 
tagion of  the  sacred  things;  is  it  so  strong  that  it  will  render 
taboo  what  comes  into  contact  with  that  which  is  itself  sacred 
by  contact  with  sacrificial  flesh?  There  is  here  no  reference 
to  a  code;  the  priest  is  supposed  to  know  the  boundaries 
which  separate  clean  and  unclean.  Ezekiel's  description  of 
the  priest's  function  is  just  this:  They  shall  teach  my  people 
the  difference  between  the  sacred  and  the  common,  and  cause 


i6o    ESSJTS  IN  BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

them  to  discriminate  the  clean  from  the  unclean;  and  in  a 
controversy  they  shall  judge;  according  to  my  decisions 
shall  they  judge  (Ezek.  xliv:23f.).  Neither  here  nor 
in  the  earlier  prophets  is  there  any  intimation  that  the  priest 
had  a  book  according  to  which  he  must  give  his  sentence. 
What  a  change  was  wrought  when  the  Priestcode  had  actually 
been  published  is  indicated  by  such  a  composition  as  the  one 
hundred  and  nineteenth  Psalm,  in  which  the  author  delights 
to  set  forth  his  appreciation  of  the  Word,  the  Command- 
ments, the  Statutes,  the  Judgments,  the  Testimonies  and  the 
Precepts  of  God.  Such  meditation  on  a  book  is  nowhere  com- 
mended by  earlier  writers,  and  when  Ezekiel  threatens  that  tora 
shall  perish  from  the  priest  and  counsel  from  the  ancient,  how 
easy  it  would  be  for  him  to  say  that  the  Book  of  God  would  be 
destroyed,  or  withheld  or  ignored,  if  he  had  such  a  book  in 
mind.     But  nothing  of  the  kind  is  found  in  the  record. 

Moreover,  when  the  earlier  prophets  allude  to  the  tora  it  is 
evident  that  they  do  not  refer  to  the  Mosaic  code.  That  code 
as  we  have  abundantly  shown,  was  ritual  in  its  main  purpose. 
But  when  Isaiah  invites  or  rather  summons  the  people  to 
hear  the  tora  of  their  God  it  is  to  denounce  the  ritual  in  un- 
sparing terms:  "To  what  purpose  is  the  number  of  your  sac- 
rifices to  me?  .  .  .  Who  has  required  this  at  your  hands,  to 
trample  my  courts?"  The  prophet  is  speaking  in  the  name  of 
his  God,  but  he  does  not  derive  his  tora  from  any  written 
source.  Amos  thinks  that  the  more  sacrifices  are  offered,  the 
greater  the  sin,  and  if  any  one  maintains  that  this  is  because 
they  were  offered  at  Bethel  and  Gilgal  instead  of  at  Jerusa- 
lem, all  we  can  say  is  that  the  prophet  was  strangely  derelict 
in  not  telling  the  people  so  in  so  many  words.  What  the 
prophets  required  was  something  quite  different  from  the 
punctilious  observance  of  a  ritual  code.  As  Amos  puts  it: 
"Let  justice  roll  on  as  waters  and  righteousness  as  a  perennial 
stream."  Hosea  has  the  root  of  the  matter:  "I  desire  loyalty 
rather  than  sacrifice,  and  the  knowledge  of  God  rather  than 
burnt-offerings." 

That  the  prophets  were  great  moral  teachers  is  trite  enough. 


HISTORICAL   INTERPRETATION  i6i 

What  I  am  trying  to  show  is  that  only  on  the  modern  view  of 
the  Book,  according  to  which  they  were  not  dependent  on  any 
alleged  ritual  Law,  do  we  appreciate  their  originality.  Of 
course  there  may  have  been  in  existence  some  collection  of 
legal  precedents  such  as  the  Covenant  Code  of  Exodus.  If  so 
it  was  not  regarded  by  these  preachers  of  righteousness  as 
the  authoritative  voice  of  God.  The  conception  of  a  complete 
system  of  ethics,  ritual,  economics,  and  science  of  govern- 
ment, such  as  the  Pentateuch  claims  to  be,  was  entirely  for- 
eign to  their  thought.  Think  what  force  they  might  have 
given  their  exhortations  if  they  could  have  quoted  as  inspired 
revelation  the  verse  which  Jesus  regarded  as  the  summing  up 
of  Law  and  Prophets,  the  verse  found  in  the  Priestcode:  Thou 
shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thine  own  soul !  Their  silence  con- 
cerning any  such  divine  command  is  certainly  more  con- 
vincing than  words. 

V.   SIN,  AND   ATONEMENT 

If  the  reader  will  turn  to  the  twenty-sixth  chapter  of  Leviti- 
cus he  will  find  a  series  of  threats,  designed  to  enforce  obedi- 
ence to  the  commands  embodied  in  the  preceding  chapters. 
The  concluding  verse  reads:  These  are  the  statutes  and  judg- 
ments and  instructions  which  Yahweh  gave  between  Himself 
and  the  sons  of  Israel  at  Mount  Sinai.  A  similar  verse  is 
found  at  the  end  of  the  next  chapter  and  another  closes  the 
book  of  Numbers.  In  each  case  it  looks  as  if  the  verse  was 
the  subscription  to  what  was  once  a  separate  document. 
Again  at  the  conclusion  of  what  we  call  the  Covenant  Code 
we  find  a  series  of  promises  conditioned  on  observance  of 
the  provisions  of  the  Code,  and  in  Deuteronomy  we  have  an 
elaborate  series  of  threats  and  promises,  apparently  the  con- 
clusion of  the  book  in  its  original  form.  The  only  way  of 
accounting  for  these  similar  sections  is  to  suppose  that  in 
each  case  they  belong  to  collections  of  laws  or  precedents, 
once  separate  but  now  combined  in  the  Pentateuch. 

We  have  already  found  confirmation  of  this  hypothesis  in 


i62    ESSJTS  IN  BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

the  difference  in  tone  noticeable  when  we  pass  from  one  to 
the  other.  In  the  matter  of  sin  (a  fundamental  religious  con- 
ception, of  course)  we  see  that  the  Covenant  Code  deals  with 
it  as  a  matter  of  trespass  on  a  neighbor's  rights.  The  Code 
describes  the  crime  and  specifies  the  penalty.  In  Deuteronomy 
we  have  a  hortatory  work  which,  however,  deals  with  matters 
of  civil  law,  adding  ecclesiastical  regulations.  In  the  code 
which  ends  with  Leviticus  xxvi,  we  have  a  distinctly  ritual  book, 
one  which  forms  part  of  the  priestly  stratum,  but  which  at 
one  time  circulated  independently.  This  (Lev.  xvii-xxvi)  we 
know  as  the  Holiness  Code,  because  of  its  leading  motive 
which  is  expressed  in  the  words:  Be  holy  unto  me,  for  I  am 
holy  and  have  separated  you  from  the  nations,  that  you  may 
be  mine.  The  translation  is  indeed  misleading,  for  we  under- 
stand by  the  word  holiness  moral  perfection.  The  Hebrew 
had  a  different  idea.  He  was  in  agreement  with  other  people, 
of  a  certain  stage  of  thought,  by  whom  everything  in  the  world 
of  men  and  things  was  put  into  one  of  two  classes  known  as 
sacred  and  common.  On  one  side  of  the  sharp  line  of  division 
was  the  divinity  and  what  belonged  to  Him;  on  the  other  was 
the  world  and  things  not  set  apart  for  religious  uses.  Sacred 
and  profane  are  the  words  we  use  to  designate  the  two 
classes,  though  we  do  not  think  of  the  gods  as  sacred.  Yet 
the  idea  is  in  the  Hebrew  word,  and  the  nearest  we  can  come 
to  the  meaning  of  the  verse  just  quoted  is  to  translate:  Be 
separate  from  all  that  is  common,  because  I,  Yahweh,  am 
thus  separate.  Another  writer  has  expressed  the  thought  in 
the  words:  Now  therefore  if  you  will  obey  my  voice  and  keep 
my  covenant  you  shall  be  my  own  possession  .  .  .  and  shall 
be  a  kingdom  of  priests,  a  sacred  (consecrated)  nation.  This 
certainly  is  the  idea  which  Ezekiel  had.  Israel's  function 
in  the  world  is  to  be  guardian  of  the  temple  and  its  service; 
and  to  this  end  the  nation  must  be  kept  pure  from  defilement, 
'in  a  state  of  grace'  to  use  later  theological  language,  though 
the  state  of  grace  was  conceived  of  physically  rather  than 
morally. 

For  the  logical  effect  of  this  conception  is  to  reveal  a  num- 


HISTORICAL   INTERPRETATION  163 

ber  of  dangers  against  which  a  man  must  guard.  The  intru- 
sion of  that  which  is  common  into  the  sphere  of  the  sacred 
will  be  destructive  to  the  intruder.  If  an  unconsecrated  per- 
son should  come  into  the  sanctuary  he  would  fall  a  victim  to 
the  divine  anger.  On  the  other  hand  if  the  priest  wearing  the 
sacred  vestments  should  go  about  among  the  people  he  would 
infect  persons  and  things  with  his  own  character,  and  thus 
make  them  unfit  for  common  life  and  common  use.  The  con- 
trast between  the  two  classes  is  expressed  also  by  the  words 
clean  and  unclean.  Unclean  in  the  highest  degree  is  all  that 
is  connected  with  the  worship  of  other  divinities  than  Yah- 
weh,  including  in  this  class  the  spirits  of  the  dead  and  all 
local  spirits,  fairies,  or  cobolds.  It  is  not  without  reason 
therefore  that  the  Holiness  Code  requires  every  animal  slain 
for  food  to  be  brought  to  the  sanctuary,  that  the  people  should 
cease  sacrificing  to  the  satyrs  with  which  their  imagination 
peopled  the  open  country.  This  is  a  reversal  of  the  Deu- 
teronomic  permission  to  slay  at  a  distance  from  the  sanctuary. 
It  looks  as  though  the  people  could  not  rid  themselves  of  the 
idea  that  every  act  of  slaughter  must  concern  some  divinity, 
and  that  when  they  poured  the  blood  on  the  ground,  as  was 
enjoined  by  Deuteronomy,  they  were  actually  sacrificing  to 
the  genius  loci. 

The  scrupulosity  of  this  Code  is  explicable  then  on  its 
theory  that  the  sanctity  of  the  people  is  necessary  if  Yahweh 
is  to  dwell  among  them.  The  presence  of  anything  unclean 
is  abhorrent  to  Him,  causes  His  anger  to  flame  out,  and  de- 
stroys the  offender.  If  the  nation  is  infected  He  will  desert 
His  dwelling,  and  the  people  will  be  left  without  their  Pro- 
tector. It  must  be  clear  that  this  idea  was  the  result  of  the 
experiences  of  the  exile.  Ezekiel  drove  it  home  when  in 
vision  he  saw  Yahweh  leaving  the  temple  because  of  the 
abominations  of  the  people  of  Jerusalem.  In  other  words  the 
point  of  view  of  the  Holiness  Code  is  that  of  Ezekiel,  and  the 
redaction  must  have  taken  place  at  about  the  date  of  the 
prophet's  activity.  His  view  of  sin  we  have  found  to  be 
ritual.    Offences  against  the  moral  law  and  violations  of  rit- 


i64    ESSJrS  IN  BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

ual  purity  alike  offended  the  divinity.  This  also  is  the  view 
of  the  Holiness  Code.  But  in  one  respect  it  is  more  specific. 
It  is  careful  to  distinguish  unwitting  from  intentional  trans- 
gressions, and  to  provide  separate  treatment  for  the  two 
classes.  For  sin  committed  "with  a  high  hand,"  that  is  with 
full  knowledge,  this  author  has  only  penalty:  That  soul  shall 
be  cut  off  from  its  people.  Whether  he  meant  that  execution 
was  to  be  done  by  the  authorities,  or  whether  the  offender  was 
to  be  left  to  an  act  of  God  is  not  made  clear,  and  this  is  another 
evidence  of  the  late  date  of  this  Code,  for  in  the  exile,  and 
for  the  most  part  afterwards,  the  civil  law  was  not  in  the 
hands  of  the  Jews.  Probably  the  excommunication  of  the 
offender  was  in  the  writer's  mind,  for  his  primary  interest,  as 
we  have  seen,  is  in  keeping  the  sacred  area  free  from  pollu- 
tion. The  purity  of  the  camp  (here  put  for  the  city  of  Jeru- 
salem which  he  had  really  in  mind)  must  be  preserved  by  the 
exclusion  of  the  leper,  every  one  that  had  an  issue,  and  every 
one  unclean  by  contact  with  the  dead  (Num.  v:i-4),  lest  they 
defile  the  camp.  Certain  diseases,  here  classed  as  leprosy, 
certain  physiological  conditions,  and  contact  with  dead  bodies 
are  named  together,  because  they  are  all  attributed  to  the  same 
cause,  that  is,  influence  of  demons.  Most  surprising  to  us  is 
the  precaution  taken  in  case  of  childbirth.  There  underlies 
it  no  thought  of  the  sinfulness  of  sexual  desire,  and  no  desire 
to  minimize  the  importance  of  continuance  of  the  race.  The 
Hebrew  did  not  exalt  asceticism,  and  the  gift  of  children  is 
regarded  by  the  Biblical  writers  as  one  of  the  best  evidences 
of  the  divine  favor.  Why,  then,  should  a  woman  who  has 
borne  a  son  be  shut  out  of  the  camp  forty  days,  or,  if  it  were 
a  daughter  that  was  given  her,  eighty  days?  And  why  should 
she  require  a  special  purification  at  the  end  of  the  period? 
The  answer  is  that  traditionally  the  sexual  life  was  regarded 
as  something  under  the  care  of  special  divinities.  Therefore, 
everything  connected  with  it  is  taboo  in  the  religion  of  Yahweh, 
and  precautions  must  be  taken  accordingly. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  purification  in  these  cases 
is  effected  by  an  offering  called  a  sin-offering,  although  in  our 


HISTORICAL  INTERPRETATION  165 

apprehension  no  sin  has  been  committed.  The  priest  who  offi- 
ciates is  said  to  make  atonement  for  the  offender.  The  word 
translated  'make  atonement,'  has  a  history  however,  and  we 
must  not  read  into  it  more  than  the  early  writer  understood  by 
it.  The  mother  of  a  new-born  babe  has  committed  no  sin,  and 
needs  no  atonement  in  our  sense  of  the  word.  What  has  been 
said  about  the  prominence  of  the  sin-offering  in  the  postexilic 
literature  makes  clear  what  is  meant.  The  offering  takes 
away  the  taboo  under  which  the  mother,  because  of  supposed 
uncanny  influences,  suffers,  and  when  this  is  removed  she  can 
again  enter  the  sanctuary. 

This  idea  of  purification  is  somewhat  more  elaborately  set 
forth  in  the  regulations  concerning  the  leper.  When  it  is  cer- 
tified that  he  is  healed  of  his  disease  he  must  still  submit  to 
certain  rites  before  he  is  admitted  to  the  community.  In  this 
case  the  priest  takes  two  birds,  also  cedar  wood,  scarlet  stuff 
and  hyssop  —  substances  which  were  supposed  to  counteract 
ritual  uncleanness.  One  of  the  birds  is  slain  and  its  blood 
is  sprinkled  on  the  convalescent,  after  the  red  substances  have 
been  dipped  in  the  blood,  apparently  to  heighten  the  prophy- 
lactic power.  The  living  bird  is  then  dipped  in  the  blood  and 
allowed  to  go  free.  This  is  a  preliminary  rite  and  the  patient 
is  kept  apart  seven  days  longer.  Then  by  a  ceremony  of  con- 
secration, quite  similar  to  that  by  which  the  priests  are  in- 
ducted into  office,  he  is  qualified  to  enter  the  sanctuary.  The 
bird  let  loose  is  supposed  to  carry  away  any  lurking  infection, 
thus  reducing  the  uncleaness  by  one  degree,  but  what  re- 
mains is  sufficient  to  keep  the  man  away  from  the  sanctuary 
seven  days  longer.  After  this  period  has  elapsed,  the  cere- 
mony of  consecration  is  necessary  before  he  is  rectus  in 
ecclesia.  It  may  not  be  out  of  place  to  point  out  here  that 
in  all  this  there  is  no  idea  of  a  substitutionary  atonement; 
the  sin-offering  is  not  slain  in  place  of  the  guilty  man.  The 
idea  that  it  is  so  slain  has  been  prominent  in  Christian  exposi- 
tion, and  is  found  also  in  Judaism.  Manasseh  ben  Israel  says 
that,  as  Isaac  was  to  be  sacrificed  and  the  Lord  was  satisfied 
with  a  ram,  so  he  who  brings  a  sacrifice  should  consider  that  for 


i66    ESSJTS  IN   BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

his  offences  he  merited  the  death  which  the  animal  suffers. 
Christian  commentators  have  gone  so  far  as  to  interpret  the 
altar  fire  by  which  the  victim  is  consumed  as  a  type  of  the  fire 
of  hell  which  awaits  the  evil-doer.  The  misapprehension 
could  hardly  be  more  extreme.  The  altar  and  all  that  is  on 
it  is  most  sacred,  while  the  fire  of  hell  is  most  accursed.  More- 
over, Isaac  was  not  under  sentence  on  account  of  his  sin,  but 
was  brought  as  a  burnt-offering  because  he  was  the  most 
precious  gift  which  his  father  could  bring.  The  lesson  of 
the  story  is  of  course  that  Yahweh  is  willing  to  accept  the 
gift  of  an  animal  instead  of  the  first-born  son  on  which  he  had 
a  traditional  claim.  But  nothing  is  said  of  sin  or  a  sin-offer- 
ing in  the  narrative.  Even  in  the  case  of  the  leper,  the  offer- 
ing is  not  a  substitute  for  the  man.  The  man  in  fact  is  not 
guilty  in  any  sense  in  which  we  use  that  word.  If,  as  has 
.sometimes  been  supposed,  his  disease  was  sent  as  a  punish- 
ment for  sin,  the  guilt  no  longer  rests  upon  him  for  by  hypoth- 
esis he  has  been  cured  before  the  offering  is  brought.  Whether 
substitutionary  atonement  is  anywhere  exemplified  in  the  Old 
Testament  is  another  question.  All  that  we  are  here  con- 
cerned to  notice  is  that  it  does  not  come  into  view  in  connec- 
tion with  the  sin-offerings. 

That  this  whole  matter  of  clean  and  unclean,  sacred  and 
common,  consecrated  and  taboo,  is  one  of  the  primitive  re- 
ligious conceptions  which  are  found  at  all  stages  of  human 
development,  needs  no  demonstration.  It  does  not  follow  that, 
because  to  our  view  it  is  primitive,  therefore  the  document 
in  which  it  is  most  emphasized  is  of  very  ancient  date.  The 
tenacity  of  this  idea  enabled  it  to  hold  the  place  it  holds  in 
the  post-exilic  literature  of  the  Jews.  Its  prominence  there 
is  due  to  the  experience  of  the  exile.  The  long  delay  of  God 
in  bringing  back  the  glories  of  Solomon's  kingdom  impressed 
the  Jews  with  the  sense  of  guilt.  This  sense  is  made  evident 
by  such  prayers  as  that  of  Nehemiah,  and  by  the  touching 
expostulations  of  some  of  the  Psalms.  The  scrupulosity  of 
the  Priestcode  in  providing  for  the  purification  of  people, 


HISTORICAL  INTERPRETATION  167 

land,  temple,  and  altar,  is  evidence  of  the  postexilic  frame  of 
mind.  Its  resemblance  to  what  we  find  in  Ezekiel  has  al- 
ready been  remarked  upon.  The  Priestly  view  of  sin  and 
its  remedy,  therefore,  confirms  the  critical  view  of  Israel's 
literature. 


XIV 
SOME    SURVIVALS 

IN  THE  first  of  these  essays  it  was  shown  that  Hebrew 
literature  is  the  result  of  a  complicated  process  in  which 
early  material  went  through  the  hands  of  various  editors 
before  it  assumed  the  shape  in  which  it  has  come  to  us.  It 
may  be  interesting  to  note  some  erratic  blocks  which  attest 
the  reality  of  this  process.  Vv^e  will  not  dwell  upon  the  Baby- 
lonian material,  such  as  the  story  of  the  great  deluge^  because 
that  is  common  property  of  the  expositors.  Some  minor  in- 
sertions in  the  narrative  are  equally  significant.  In  the  book 
of  Exodus,  for  example,  we  have  an  anecdote  which  on  exami- 
nation shows  itself  to  be  of  different  tone  from  the  narrative 
in  which  it  is  imbedded.  It  tells  that  w^hen  Moses  and  his 
family  were  journeying  through  the  desert  their  God,  Yahweh, 
met  them  and  was  about  to  kill  the  prophet.  Zipporah,  his 
wife,  with  great  presence  of  mind,  took  a  sharp  stone  and 
circumcised  her  infant  son,  then  smeared  the  blood  on  her 
husband's  body,  whereupon  the  angry  divinity  spared  him 
(Ex.  iv: 24-26).  The  more  we  look  at  the  story  the  more  we 
are  puzzled  by  it.  Moses  was  the  chosen  instrument  of  Yah- 
v/eh  for  the  deliverance  of  Israel  from  bondage;  he  was  re- 
turning to  Egypt  to  obey  the  divine  command;  no  oversight 
is  charged  against  him  or  against  his  wife;  neglect  to  cir- 
cumcise his  child,  which  is  traditionally  made  the  occasion  of 
the  anger,  is  nowhere  mentioned  in  the  narrative.  To  crown 
all,  there  is  no  parallel  for  the  use  of  circumcision  blood  in 
the  way  indicated  in  the  text. 

On  the  other  hand,  parallels  can  be  pointed  out  in  primitive 
religions,  so-called.  It  is  a  common  belief  that  the  genius  loci 
must  be  placated  whenever  a  new  location  for  tent  or  house  is 
chosen.    For  this  reason  the  custom  of  making  a  foundation 

168 


SOME   SURVIVALS  169 

sacrifice  for  every  new  building  is  wide-spread.  The  anec- 
dote we  are  considering  is  apparently  a  local  saga  which  has 
been  transferred  to  Moses  and  Yahweh.  Blood  being  a  power- 
ful charm  it  is  used  to  ward  off  hostile  spirits,  and  while  human 
blood  is  not  employed  for  this  purpose  in  Hebrew  ritual,  there 
is  no  reason  why  it  should  not  be  so  applied.  Circum- 
cision brings  the  boy  into  the  fellowship  of  the  clan,  and  so 
with  the  God  of  the  clan.  In  fact  circumcision  is  the  seal  of 
the  covenant  by  which  Yahweh  and  Israel  are  bound  to- 
gether. The  application  of  the  blood  would  thus  remind  the 
God  of  His  relations  with  His  people,  and  so  the  charm  would 
be  doubly  effective.  We  might  remind  ourselves  here  that  in 
the  account  of  Abraham's  sacrifice  of  Isaac,  the  boy  is  bound 
and  laid  on  the  wood  of  the  altar,  evidently  in  order  that 
the  blood  may  flow  directly  onto  the  altar,  another  instance 
contrary  to  the  usual  custom  showing  that  the  human  blood  is 
effective  with  the  divinity. 

A  similar  survival  is  preserved  in  the  book  of  Joshua.  There 
we  read  that  at  the  invasion  of  Canaan,  Joshua  had  a  vision. 
He  saw  a  man  with  a  drawn  sword,  and  on  asking  his  errand 
was  informed  that  the  visitant  had  come  as  prince  of  the  army 
of  Yahweh.  Moreover,  Joshua  was  commanded  to  put  off 
his  shoes  because  he  was  on  sacred  ground.  Joshua  did  so  — 
and  then  the  narrative  breaks  off.  Evidently  we  have  a  mu- 
tilated fragment  of  a  local  saga,  according  to  which  the  divin- 
ity agreed  to  help  the  Israelites  in  their  war  —  on  certain 
conditions.  That  it  was  a  divinity  and  not  merely  an  angel 
who  spoke  is  clear,  for  the  ground  was  sacred  —  always  evi- 
dence of  the  presence  of  a  god.  What  the  conditions  stated 
were  we  can  no  longer  discover,  but  we  may  conjecture  that  the 
local  Baal  (to  use  the  name  current  among  the  natives)  agreed 
to  the  Israelite  conquest  on  the  understanding  that  he  was  to 
receive  tithes,  first-fruits,  and  offerings  as  before. 

The  two  stories  thus  considered  belong  to  the  earlier  strata 
of  the  Pentateuch,  but  that  the  priestly  document  also  pre- 
serves material  of  primitive  cast  is  evident.  The  critical 
theory  in  dating  the  code  in  the  exile  does  not  mean  to  assert 


I/O    ESSJrS   IN  BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

that  all  its  content  originated  at  that  time.  In  fact,  being 
a  codification  of  priestly  tradition,  it  must  contain  elements  of 
different  dates.  In  other  communities  the  common  law  pre- 
serves statutes  and  decisions  of  very  widely  separated  periods. 
That  case  law  preceded  statute  law  in  Israel  seems  evident 
from  the  wording  of  some  of  the  regulations.  In  the  Covenant 
Code,  for  example,  we  read:  If  a  man  do  thus  and  so  such  a 
penalty  will  follow.  The  implication  is  that  a  judgment  to 
this  effect  had  been  pronounced  in  some  historic  instance. 
The  use  of  the  word  judgments  in  connection  with  the  words 
statutes  and  commandments  is  proof  of  the  historic  process. 
In  the  priestly  document  we  find  some  regulations  promulgated 
in  connection  with  particular  instances.  Thus  the  man  who 
blasphemed  the  Name  was  arrested  and  held  until  the  oracle 
could  pronounce  judgment  (Lev.  xxiv:io-i6).  Similarly,  the 
sentence  on  the  man  who  gathered  sticks  on  the  sabbath  cre- 
ated a  precedent  (Num.  xv:32-36). 

The  codes  now  combined  in  the  Pentateuch  must  therefore 
be  regarded  as  the  result  of  successive  codifications  of  prece- 
dents handed  on  from  one  generation  to  another  by  tradi- 
tion. Deuteronomy  might  be  thought  to  be  an  exception, 
since  it  is  the  program  of  the  prophetic  party.  But  even  it 
embodies  much  customary  law.  Ezekiel's  legislation  again, 
though  put  into  shape  by  the  prophet,  derives  its  substance 
from  priestly  usage.  Its  temple  is  a  reproduction  of  that  of 
Solomon,  only  fortified  with  stronger  walls  and  increased  in 
area,  and  its  regulations  concerning  the  priesthood  were  ap- 
parently the  carrying  out  of  the  practice  of  the  stricter  party 
before  the  exile.  In  the  priestly  stratum  also,  we  discover 
certain  elements  which  we  can  account  for  only  as  survivals. 
They  were  part  of  folk-custom  so  tenaciously  held  that  they 
could  not  be  safely  disregarded.  One  of  them  has  strayed 
into  Deuteronomy,  although  apparently  not  a  part  of  the  book 
as  originally  published.  This  is  the  section  which  provides 
for  a  case  of  murder,  the  author  of  the  crime  being  unknown 
(Deut.  xxiii-g).  In  case  a  man  is  found  slain  in  the  open 
country  with  no  clue  to  the  murderer,  the  sheikhs  of  the  nearest 


SOME   SURVIVALS  171 

village  are  to  bring  a  heifer  which  has  not  known  the  yoke, 
taking  it  to  a  valley  in  which  there  is  a  stream  of  running 
water,  but  which  is  not  under  cultivation.  There  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  priests  they  are  to  disavow  any  connection  with  the 
crime,  washing  their  hands  as  a  token.  The  victim  then  has 
its  neck  broken,  and  apparently  the  carcass  is  left  on  the  spot. 
The  whole  ceremony  is  so  foreign  to  Hebrew  notions,  as  re- 
corded in  the  Law,  that  we  must  suppose  it  a  relic  of  early 
religion.  The  most  plausible  supposition  is  that  it  is  a  sac- 
rifice to  the  spirit  of  the  murdered  man.  The  ghost  of  a  man 
who  has  met  a  violent  death  is  believed  to  wreak  his  vengeance 
on  the  living,  and  it  must  be  placated  in  some  way.  Worship 
of  the  dead  is  an  element  common  to  all  early  religion.  The 
point  we  now  have  in  mind  is  that  a  sacrifice  of  this  kind  is 
foreign  to  the  official  Hebrew  religion.  Everything  connected 
with  the  dead  is  unclean  to  the  worshippers  of  Yahweh.  This 
particular  rite  therefore  is  discordant  to  the  document  in 
which  we  find  it.    It  is  a  true  survival. 

The  same  may  be  said  of  a  curious  ceremony  now  enjoined 
in  the  book  of  Numbers  (v:ii-3i).  It  provides  that  if  a 
man  suspects  his  wife  of  unfaithfulness  he  may  bring  her 
before  the  priest,  and  also  provide  a  meal-offering.  The 
priest  is  then  to  take  'holy  water'  —  the  only  mention  of  such 
a  substance  in  Hebrew  literature  —  and  put  into  it  some  dust 
from  the  floor  of  the  sanctuary.  He  then  writes  certain 
curses  and  washes  off  the  ink  into  the  cup  of  water  and  this 
is  given  the  woman  to  drink.  At  the  opening  of  the  ceremony 
the  woman  has  been  adjured  as  to  her  innocence,  and  the 
solemn  assurance  is  given  her  that  if  she  is  guilty  the  magical 
water  will  cause  her  body  to  swell,  and  her  thigh  to  fall  away, 
that  is,  will  cause  an  abortion. 

Obviously,  we  have  here  a  case  of  ordeal.  The  divinity  is 
appealed  to  to  discover  guilt  by  a  magical  test.  The  sacred 
water  and  the  dust  from  the  floor  of  the  sanctuary  have  un- 
canny power,  being  taboo  to  the  layman.  This  power  is  mag- 
nified by  the  curses  written  on  the  paper  and  washed  off  into 
the  water.     The  solemn  adjuration  by  the  priest  impresses 


172    ESSJrS  IN  BIBLICAL  INTERPRETATION 

this  fact  on  the  suspected  woman.  Whether  the  ceremony 
will  affect  her  imagination  so  as  to  produce  the  effect  threat- 
ened, we  need  not  inquire.  The  belief  of  the  people  that  the 
detection  of  guilt  may  be  accomplished  in  this  way  is  of 
course  evident  on  the  surface.  But  no  other  case  of  applica- 
tion of  the  ordeal  is  found  in  the  Law,  and  we  must  suppose 
this  to  be  a  true  instance  of  survival. 

A  third  instance  is  the  case  of  the  red  heifer  (Num.  19), 
the  only  one  in  which  the  color  of  the  victim  is  specified.  This 
animal  is  to  be  brought  outside  the  camp,  a  requirement 
without  parallel  in  other  parts  of  the  Law,  for  all  offerings 
must  be  brought  to  the  door  of  the  sanctuary.  The  ceremony 
is,  to  be  sure,  directed  towards  the  tabernacle,  and  a  priest 
is  to  be  present.  When  the  animal  is  slain  this  priest  takes 
of  the  blood  and  sprinkles  it  seven  times  in  the  direction  of 
the  sacred  Dwelling.  This  again  is  a  departure  from  priestly 
custom,  for  in  every  other  case  the  blood  is  applied  directly  to 
the  altar  and,  in  the  sin-offerings,  applied  also  to  the  person 
or  things  to  be  purified.  Although  this  is  called  a  sin-offering, 
it  is  peculiar  in  that  a  female  victim  is  chosen,  whereas  in 
all  other  cases  it  must  be  a  male  animal.  When  the  sprinkling 
of  blood  has  been  accomplished  the  rest  of  the  blood  and  the 
whole  carcass,  including  the  skin  and  the  contents  of  the  in- 
testines, are  to  be  burned,  and  into  the  fire  the  priest  is  to 
throw  cedar  wood,  scarlet  stuff,  and  hyssop.  After  the  burn- 
ing, the  ashes  are  to  be  collected  and  kept  in  a  clean  place. 
They  are  to  be  used  for  ritual  cleansing,  that  is  when  a  person 
is  levitically  defiled  by  the  presence  of  a  human  corpse,  or  by 
contact  with  human  remains  or  with  a  grave,  he  must  be 
purified  by  being  sprinkled  with  water  in  which  some  of  the 
ashes  have  been  mingled.  This  is  to  be  done  on  the  third 
and  also  on  the  seventh  day  after  the  defilement  has  been 
contracted.  Further,  the  tent  in  which  a  death  has  taken 
place  is  to  be  cleansed  in  like  manner.  The  statute  closes 
with  a  severe  threat  against  any  neglect  of  the  rite;  the  guilty 
man  is  to  be  cut  off  from  the  assembly.  Curiously  enough, 
the  persons  who  are  concerned  in  the  rite,  the  priest,  the  man 


SOME  SURVIVALS  173 

who  does  the  burning,  the  one  who  collects  the  ashes,  and  the 
one  who  does  the  sprinkling,  are  made  'unclean'  by  participa- 
tion in  the  ceremony. 

In  spite  of  the  importance  which  the  recorder  of  the  law 
attaches  to  it,  there  is  in  the  whole  Old  Testament  only  one 
instance  in  which  the  observance  of  this  law  is  narrated,  and 
that  one  seems  to  be  a  story  designed  simply  to  show  how  the 
rite  is  to  be  made  effective.  This  instance  is  the  slaughter  of  the 
Midianites  (Num.  xxxi).  Here  we  read  that  the  warriors  who 
had  been  active  in  the  massacre  were  kept  outside  the  camp 
for  seven  days,  and  purified  themselves  the  third  day  and  the 
seventh  day.  The  plunder  also,  consisting  of  metal,  was 
purified  first  by  fire  and  then  by  the  'water  of  impurity.'  No- 
where else  in  the  numerous  wars  of  Israel  did  the  soldiers, 
so  far  as  our  knowledge  goes,  take  pains  to  conform  to  the 
law. 

The  perplexity  into  which  we  are  brought  by  careful  con- 
sideration of  this  chapter  is  not  relieved  by  the  efforts  of  the 
expositors,  whether  Jewish  or  Christian.  The  Rabbis  confess 
that  they  can  give  no  reason  for  the  law,  and  suppose  that 
Solomon  had  this  legislation  in  mind  when  he  wrote:  I  said 
I  will  be  wise,  but  it  was  far  from  me.  Some  say  that  the 
explanation  was  vouchsafed  to  Moses  alone,  and  others  affirm 
that  the  Almighty  Himself  found  it  a  worthy  subject  for  study 
and  that  Moses  found  Him  engaged  upon  it  when  he  ascended 
the  Mount.  Attempts  to  connect  the  heifer  of  the  text  with 
other  cows  mentioned  in  the  Old  Testament,  or  even  with 
the  golden  calf  are  merely  evidences  of  the  straits  to  which 
the  commentators  are  reduced.  Christian  interpretation  is 
no  more  helpful.  The  attempt  of  Barnabas  to  find  Christ 
typified  in  the  section,  was  noticed  in  the  first  of  these  essays. 
It  is  obviously  discredited  by  the  violence  it  does  to  the  text, 
and  later  Christian  efforts  are  no  more  convincing.  Our  only 
recourse  is  to  suppose  that  we  have  here  a  piece  of  early  re- 
ligious ritual,  discordant  to  the  general  tone  of  Judaism,  but 
which  was  preserved  because  of  the  firmness  with  which  the 
people  held  to  it. 


174    ESSJTS  IN   BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

What  this  early  religious  rite  was,  seems  clear  from  the 
parallels  that  we  are  able  to  point  out.  The  distinctive  marks 
of  this  ceremony,  and  the  ones  which  have  given  us  perplex- 
ity, are  precisely  those  which  in  other  religions  characterize 
sacrifices  to  the  dead.  First  of  all  the  red  color  of  the  victim 
is  the  color  associated  with  death  or  with  the  disposal  of  a 
corpse.  Red  coffins,  red  banners  at  funerals,  red  objects  de- 
posited with  the  dead  man,  red  pigment  applied  to  the  corpse 
are  attested  in  different  regions.  The  choice  of  this  color  is 
explicable,  since  being  the  color  of  the  blood  it  is  associated 
with  life.  Among  the  Greeks  it  was  believed  that  the  blood 
of  a  victim  gave  some  semblance  of  life  to  the  shade  in  Hades. 
The  red  victim  would  be  doubly  effective  because  of  its  color. 
These  same  Greeks  offered  red  victims  to  the  underworld 
deities,  and  the  spirits  of  the  dead  are  associated  or  confused 
with  these  deities  in  the  minds  of  many  worshippers.  The 
Archon  of  Plataea,  who  at  other  times  wore  white  garments, 
wore  crimson  when  invoking  the  spirits  of  dead  warriors.  A 
further  parallel  is  the  sacrifice  of  a  female  victim,  and  when  we 
read  that  a  barren  cow  was  offered  by  Ulysses  to  a  dead  friend, 
we  are  irresistibly  reminded  of  the  red  heifer  which  according 
to  Talmudic  tradition  must  be  a  virgin.  The  most  remark- 
able thing  about  the  heifer  is  that  her  blood  Avas  shed  away 
from  the  sanctuary.  Jewish  tradition  forbids  the  priest  who 
sprinkles  the  blood  to  use  a  vessel;  he  must  catch  it  in  his 
hand  and  then  wipe  off  his  hand  on  the  carcass.  We  must 
conclude  that  originally  the  blood  was  allowed  to  flow  to 
the  ground,  and  that  the  sprinkling  of  a  little  of  it  towards 
the  sanctuary  is  a  superficial  attempt  to  conceal  the  original 
method.  But  in  sacrifice  for  the  dead  the  blood  was  absorbed 
by  the  ground.  Again,  the  burning  in  this  case  is  more 
thorough  than  in  other  sacrifices,  just  as  in  Greek  religion 
victims  for  the  dead  are  wholly,  consumed,  either  on  very  low 
altars  or  on  the  ground.  We  may  even  suspect  that  the  place 
specified  in  this  rite  is  not  without  significance.  It  is  'before 
the  sanctuary.'  But  as  the  sanctuary  which  the  Priestcode 
has  in  mind  is  the  Jerusalem  temple  this  means  on  the  Mount 


SOME  SURVIFALS  175 

of  Olives,  and  this  Mount  was  a  place  of  sepulture  for  Jeru- 
salem from  early  times. 

The  number  of  parallels  thus  discoverable  can  hardly  be 
accidental,  in  which  case  we  have  before  us  a  veritable  sur- 
vival from  the  animistic  stage  of  rehgion,  a  sacrifice  for  the 
departed  souls,  something  against  which  the  religion  of  Yah- 
weh  reacted  strongly,  but  which  was  apparently  too  firmly 
entrenched  in  the  popular  belief  to  be  wholly  discarded.  The 
defilement  of  those  who  took  part  in  the  rite  now  becomes  in- 
telligible. Every  one  concerned  in  a  sacrifice  of  this  kind 
necessarily  became  unfit  for  the  sanctuary  of  Yahweh  —  just 
as  the  Greek  who  took  part  in  the  worship  of  a  hero  could 
not  enter  the  temple  of  Zeus  until  purified.  Consecration  to 
one  divinity  was  antipathetic  to  another.  Doubtless  popular 
belief  among  the  Hebrews  held  that  the  ghost  of  a  dead  man 
was  likely  to  work  harm  to  the  living  unless  placated.  The 
kings  of  Judah  were  honored  after  their  death  by  what  is 
called  a  burning,  apparently  a  sacrifice  of  some  kind,  and 
that  Yahweh  regarded  the  presence  of  their  tombs  in  the 
vicinity  of  His  sanctuary  as  an  insult  shows  that  some  sort  of 
divine  honors  were  paid  to  them.  It  was  safer,  the  compilers 
of  the  Priestcode  thought,  to  retain  this  rite  on  account  of 
this  popular  prejudice.  All  that  remains  to  explain  is  the 
fact  that  the  ashes  were  used  in  lustration,  and  had  a  purifying 
effect,  although  they  defiled  those  who  handled  them.  The 
only  hypothesis  which  fits  the  case  is  that  originally  the 
sprinkling  at  the  end  of  seven  days  marked  the  termination 
of  the  period  for  which  the  mourners  consecrated  themselves 
to  the  departed.  It  was  still  necessary  for  those  who  had  been 
sprinkled  to  take  the  ritual  bath  before  being  admitted  to  the 
sanctuary. 

The  cases  of  survival  which  we  have  now  considered  are 
taken  from  different  strata  of  the  Pentateuch.  They  serve 
to  strengthen  the  critical  contention  that  the  five  books 
ascribed  to  Moses  are  the  result  of  a  complicated  process  in 
which  elements  of  different  date  and  different  origin  have 
been  brought  into  juxtaposition. 


T 


XV 
APOCALYPTIC  VAGARIES 

HE  STRENGTH  of  certain  expectations  ostensibly 
based  on  exegesis  of  the  Bible  is  attested  by  the  num- 
ber of  religious  communities  which  are  correctly 
classed  as  Adventists.  Besides  those  which  use  that  name 
as  their  official  title,  we  may  count  here  the  Plymouth 
Brethren,  the  Shakers,  the  Mormons,  the  Christadelphians, 
and  the  Bible  Students  Association  organized  under  the  lead 
of  the  late  Pastor  Russell.  The  recent  world-war  also  brought 
to  public  notice  various  expounders  of  prophecy  who  endeav- 
ored to  interpret  the  war  in  the  light  of  Adventist  expecta- 
tions. To  say  that  so  large  a  number  of  Christian  people  are 
mistaken  may  seem  presumptuous,  but  the  historical  study 
which  their  doctrine  suggests,  can  hardly  lead  to  any  other 
conclusion.  Without  prejudgment,  let  us  endeavor  to  make 
/  such  a  study. 

The  presuppositions  on  which  all  these  bodies  are  based 
are  two:  first,  that  the  main  office  of  the  Old  Testament 
prophets  was  prediction  of  the  future;  and  secondly,  that  one 
book  in  the  Old  Testament  and  one  in  the  New  contain  and, 
to  him  who  is  able  to  interpret  them,  set  forth  a  complete 
scheme  of  the  world's  history,  an  outline,  that  is,  of  what 
may  be  expected  to  come  to  pass  until  the  consummation  of 
all  things  and  the  creation  of  a  new  state  of  society.  For 
the  first-named  of  these  beliefs,  the  word  prophet  is  perhaps 
to  blame,  for  on  the  surface  it  seems  to  mean  a  foreteller.  The 
Hebrew  word,  however,  seems  not  to  have  had  this  connota- 
tion, but  to  have  designated  one  who  speaks  for  another, 
specifically  one  who  brings  the  message  of   God,   whether 

176 


APOCALYPriC   VAGARIES  177 

the  message  concerns  the  past,  the  present,  or  the  future.  To 
the  unbiased  reader  it  must  be  clear  that  whatever  predictions 
the  earlier  prophets  uttered  were  conditional.  Like  all  other 
preachers,  they  warned  men  of  the  consequences  of  their  evil 
deeds,  and  promised  happiness  in  case  they  would  repent. 
Until  the  exile  the  message  was  generally  pessimistic,  as  Jer- 
emiah intimates  when  he  says  to  Hananiah:  The  prophets 
that  were  before  me  and  thee  prophesied  against  many  coun- 
tries and  against  great  kingdoms,  of  war  and  of  evil  and  of 
pestilence.  The  prophet  who  prophesies  of  peace  —  when 
the  word  of  prophet  comes  to  pass  then  shall  the  prophet  be 
known,  that  Yahweh  has  in  fact  sent  him  (Jer.  xxviii:8f.). 
That  is  to  say,  all  the  presumption  is  against  the  prophet  who 
predicts  anything  but  calamity. 

To  trace  the  history  of  Messianic  prophecy  is  beyond  the 
scope  of  this  essay.  Our  immediate  business  is  with  the 
apocalyptic  form  which  this  hope  took  in  such  times  of  deep 
depression  as  those  in  which  the  true  believers  often  found 
themselves.  At  such  times  the  desire  to  read  the  future  be- 
comes acute  as  we  have  reason  to  know  from  our  observations 
during  the  late  war.  We  must  remember  that  the  ancient 
world  was  full  of  portents  and  prognostications.  Every  un- 
usual event  in  sky  or  earth  was  supposed  to  presage  some 
other  event  about  to  come  to  pass.  Since  the  conception  of 
natural  law  had  not  arisen,  everything  was  attributed  to  the 
direct  action  of  the  gods.  Hope,  therefore,  taught  men  to 
expect  supernatural  intervention  whenever  human  help  seemed 
inadequate.  Evidence  is  given  by  the  book  of  Ezekiel  which, 
in  this  as  in  some  other  respects,  marks  an  epoch.  This 
prophet,  pessimistic  as  he  was  during  the  early  years  of  his 
exile,  became  more  hopeful  when  the  predicted  calamity  of 
Jerusalem  actually  took  place.  Whatever  Messianic  expec- 
tation existed  before  his  time  was  adopted  by  him  and  made 
more  specific.  His  detailed  program  forms  the  basis  for 
those  who  followed.  That  program  includes  the  defeat  of 
the  hostile  world-powers,  represented  by  Gog;  the  return  of 
Israel  to  its  own  land;  the  erection  of  a  new  temple  in  which 


178    ESSJrS  IN   BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

God  will  reside;  and  an  era  of  undisturbed  peace  and  pros- 
perity, at  least  for  the  people  of  God. 

In  the  Maccabean  period,  when  Antiochus  attempted  to 
crush  out  the  rehgion  of  faithful  Jews,  it  was  natural  that  the 
hope  of  deliverance  should  again  find  expression.  This  it 
did  in  the  book  of  Daniel,  the  first  of  the  apocalypses.  This 
book  differs  from  Ezekiel  in  that  it  attempts  to  set  a  date  for 
the  divine  intervention.  The  author's  view  takes  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  world  so  far  as  it  affects  the  fortunes  of  Israel. 
Four  great  world-empires  are  to  pass  in  succession  over  the 
stage,  beginning  with  that  of  Babylon  in  which  the  author 
makes  his  hero,  Daniel,  take  his  stand.  The  last  of  these 
is  to  be  miraculously  destroyed  by  the  kingdom  of  God,  which 
will  then  fill  the  earth.  This  event  the  author  expects  to  take 
place  in  three  years  and  a  half  from  the  time  of  his  writing. 
To  fix  this  date  he  makes  an  elaborate  calculation  based  on  a 
saying  of  Jeremiah,  That  prophet  had  named  seventy  years 
as  the  time  of  exile,  not  to  encourage  hope  of  an  early  return, 
but  to  insist  that  the  exiles  shall  reconcile  themselves  to  the 
situation  in  which  they  find  themselves  and  not  expect  an 
early  deliverance.  But  the  apocalyptical  writer  who  takes 
the  name  of  Daniel  knowing  that  the  seventy  years  had  brought 
very  little,  if  any,  relief  to  the  Jews  of  the  dispersion  con- 
cluded that  the  seventy  years  were  not  meant  to  be  taken 
literally,  but  stood  for  seventy  year-weeks.  His  calculation 
is  given  in  detail,  and  culminates  in  the  assertion  that  all  but 
half  of  the  last  week  has  passed  and  therefore  that  endurance 
through  the  remaining  half  is  what  is  required,  after  which 
the  new  state  of  things  will  come  about.  The  martyrs  for 
their  faith  will  then  be  raised  from  the  dead  to  share  the 
blessedness  of  the  kingdom,  and  the  persecutors  will  also  be 
raised  to  receive  the  penalty  of  their  misdeeds. 

This  apocalypse  we  now  know  to  be  only  one  of  a  number 
of  such  works  which  have  many  features  in  common.  Products 
of  times  of  affliction,  they  seek  to  keep  alive  the  hope  of  be- 
lievers by  promising  early  deliverance.  The  faith  of  the 
authors  in  the  rule  of  God  makes  them  confident  that  He 


APOCALYPTIC   VAGARIES  179 

cannot  delay  His  mercy,  and  that  He  will  act  in  the  imme- 
diate future.  The  relief  is  pictured  either  as  the  setting  up 
of  the  Messianic  kingdom,  the  throne  to  be  occupied  by  a 
Son  of  David,  or  as  the  rule  of  God  in  person,  or  again  as  the 
hierocracy  in  which  the  people  of  Israel  will  act  as  priest  for 
the  whole  world.  Its  seat  will  be  Jerusalem,  but  a  Jerusalem 
transformed  into  something  quite  different  from  the  city  we 
know.  In  the  more  transcendental  forms  of  the  expectation 
we  find  this  New  Jerusalem  already  prepared  in  heaven,  only 
waiting  for  the  right  moment  to  descend  and  take  its  place  on 
earth.  Its  coming  will  be  preceded  by  convulsions  of  nature, 
and  the  oppressive  nations  will  be  called  before  the  bar  of 
God  to  be  judged  for  their  sins.  And  all  this  is  to  take  place 
in  the  near  future,  reckoned  from  the  time  when  each  author 
puts  his  expectations  into  written  form. 

What  concerns  us  now  is  to  note  that  the  Jewish  expecta- 
tion of  the  Messianic  time  passed  over  into  the  Church.  The 
belief  that  the  Messiah  had  already  come  in  the  person  of 
Jesus  could  not  make  men  think  that  all  the  glories  of  the 
Messianic  kingdom  were  present  —  the  little  flock  which  pro- 
fessed allegiance  to  Jesus  was  poor  and  afflicted,  often  perse- 
cuted for  its  faith.  In  such  circumstances  the  hope  took  the 
form  of  expectation  of  a  second  advent.  The  New  Testa- 
ment Apocalypse  simply  adapts  the  Jewish  program  to  this 
form  of  the  expectation.  The  author  sees  convulsions  in  na- 
ture and  in  the  world  of  man.  Then  comes  the  sudden  revela- 
tion of  the  Lord  from  heaven,  the  drastic  overthrow  of  the 
hostile  powers,  the  rebuilding  of  Jerusalem  or  the  descent  of 
the  heavenly  city  which  is  to  take  its  place,  the  presence  of 
the  Messiah  as  universal  ruler,  and  peace  and  happiness 
throughout  the  ages.  All  this  the  author  assures  us  is  shortly 
to  come  to  pass.  This,  as  we  have  seen,  is  a  feature  com- 
mon to  these  compositions,  and  as  if  to  leave  us  in  no 
doubt  the  transfigured  Jesus  of  the  Apocalypse  assures  us: 
Behold  I  come  quickly.  That  in  fact  the  Christians  of  the 
first  generation  expected  to  see  the  return  of  Jesus  in  their 
own  time  is  evident  from  the  tone  of  other  New  Testament 


i8o    ESSJTS  IN  BIBLICAL  INTERPRETATION 

writings.  Jewish  parallels  are  easily  found.  The  defenders 
of  Jerusalem  against  the  assaults  of  Titus  were  animated 
by  a  belief  that  God  would  suddenly  reveal  Himself  and 
deliver  His  city.  After  the  fall  of  Jerusalem  into  the  hands 
of  the  Romans,  the  author  of  Fourth  Ezra  comforts  himself 
with  the  thought  that  the  great  overturning  must  still  come, 
and  at  no  long  interval.  The  Sibylline  books  expect  the  Mes- 
siah soon  after  the  Roman  triumph,  and  that  the  standard  of 
revolt  was  raised  in  the  second  century  of  our  era  because  the 
Jews  believed  the  Messiah  to  have  come  in  the  person  of  Bar 
Kochba  is  well  known. 

In  every  age  the  inappeasable  desire  to  know  the  future 
has  produced  attempts  to  date  the  consummation  of  all  things. 
Two  possibilities  at  once  suggest  themselves;  the  date  of  the 
Advent  may  be  known  by  direct  revelation,  or  it  may  be  dis- 
covered by  examination  of  Scripture,  in  which  it  is,  by  hy- 
pothesis, contained,  though  not  obvious  to  the  careless  or 
unbelieving  reader.  Both  these  ways  are  in  evidence  in  the 
history  of  the  Church.  In  every  age  there  have  been  enthusi- 
asts who  thought  themselves  inspired  to  reveal  the  future. 
With  them  we  are  not  now  concerned,  for  we  are  studying  the 
history  of  interpretation.  We  say  with  Jeremiah:  He  that 
hath  a  dream  let  him  tell  his  dream;  what  has  the  straw  to 
do  with  the  wheat?  As  to  those  who  deduce  their  theories  from 
Scripture  we  are  at  once  struck  with  their  divergence 
from  each  other.  A  monograph  on  this  subject  which  does  not 
profess  to  be  exhaustive  enumerates  no  less  than  twenty- 
seven  different  dates  which  were  fixed  as  the  time  of  the  end 
between  the  years  557  and  1734  of  our  era,  and  the  calculations 
have  gone  on  down  to  our  own  day.  The  question  naturally 
arises :  How  can  so  many  divergent  results  be  drawn  from  the 
same  Scriptures? 

Examination  of  the  postulates  underlying  the  calculations 
shows  that  they  are  only  two  in  number.  One  is  that  the  di- 
vine plan  of  the  ages,  that  is,  the  whole  scheme  of  human  his- 
tory, can  be  deduced  from  the  numerical  data  of  the  Bible. 
The  second  asserts  that  the  date  of  the  Coming  is  stated  in 


APOCALTPriC   VAGARIES  i8i 

certain  passages  in  Daniel  and  Revelation,  but  in  enigmatical 
language,  the  purpose  being  to  conceal  the  real  meaning  from 
the  superficial  reader.  The  two  theories  are  not  mutually 
exclusive.  In  fact  they  are  usually  held  in  conjunction.  The 
former  gives  prominence  to  the  numbers  seven  and  twelve  in 
the  sacred  writings,  and  suggests  that  the  history  of  the  world 
is  arranged  on  the  scale  of  one  of  these  numbers.  One  of 
the  widely  accepted  beliefs  has  been  that  as  God  created  the 
world  in  six  days  and  rested  on  the  seventh,  so  the  course  of 
the  world  would  run  in  six  thousand  years  at  the  end  of  which 
the  great  world-sabbath  of  a  thousand  years  would  come. 
Less  prominent  but  still  discoverable  is  the  theory  that  eleven 
periods  of  five  hundred  years  each  will  elapse  before  the  final 
consummation,  the  twelfth  being  the  time  of  bliss.  Another 
number  which  plays  a  part  in  ancient  symbolism  is  four,  and 
this  may  have  been  in  the  mind  of  some,  since  the  Old  Testa- 
ment chronology  (that  of  the  priestly  writer)  makes  about 
four  thousand  years  to  have  elapsed  between  the  creation  and 
the  Roman  period.  A  Rabbinic  tradition  based  on  this  num- 
ber affirms  that  the  Messiah  is  to  live  four  hundred  years. 
Daniel's  four  periods  dominated  by  four  great  empires  have 
already  been  mentioned,  and  may  have  been  suggested  by  the 
Hesiodic  four  ages.  The  prominence  of  the  number  seven 
in  the  book  of  Daniel  has  also  been  remarked  upon,  and  re- 
appears in  the  Revelation  of  John,  where  the  forty-two 
months  are  equivalent  to  the  three  and  a  half  years  of  the 
older  book,  half  of  a  seven-year  period,  this  again  being  the 
twelve  hundred  and  sixty  days  which  have  so  large  a  part  in 
later  expectation. 

To  go  back  a  little,  we  may  notice  that  the  book  of  Enoch, 
pre-Christian  apparently,  calculates  seventy  generations  from 
the  date  of  the  assumed  author.  During  this  period  the  fallen 
angels  are  to  be  imprisoned  under  the  earth,  and  at  its  termina- 
tion are  to  be  brought  to  the  final  judgment.^  Later  Jewish 
calculations  fixed  various  dates  from  the  creation  for  the 
coming  of  the  Messiah,  ranging  from  the  year  51 18  a.m.  (a.d. 

1  Enoch  10:12. 


i82    ESSJrS  IN   BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

1358)  to  5700.  Among  Christians  we  find  as  early  as  Barn- 
abas the  calculation  of  the  world-sabbath  at  the  end  of  six 
thousand  years,  and  this  passed  over  to  Tertullian  and  Ire- 
naeus.  Hippolytus  adopts  the  six  thousand  years,  but  di- 
vides the  sum  into  twelve  periods  as  already  indicated.  This 
was  easy  according  to  the  chronology  of  the  Greek  version  of 
the  Old  Testament,  for  it  makes  the  Christian  era  begin  about 
5500  years  after  the  creation.  This  Father,  therefore,  names 
the  year  500  a.d.  as  the  termination  of  the  present  world- 
order.    The  conclusion  follows  logically  from  the  premises. 

A  distinct  exception  to  the  current  belief  was  made  by 
Augustine.  His  view  of  the  two  commonwealths  practically 
identified  the  Church  with  the  Kingdom  of  God,  and  he  had 
no  use  for  a  catastrophic  overturning  of  things.  Apparently 
he  expected  the  gradual  triumph  of  the  Christian  system  as 
organized  in  the  Catholic  Church.  Although  this  view  would 
naturally  commend  itself  to  highchurchmen,  the  identifica- 
tion fell  into  discredit  among  thoughtful  men  when  corrup- 
tion invaded  the  Church  itself,  and  when  also  wars,  famines, 
and  pestilences  made  it  evident  that  the  golden  age  had  not 
yet  dawned.  As  the  year  1000  approached,  men  reminded 
themselves  of  the  Apocalyptic  statement  that  Satan  would  be 
bound  for  a  thousand  years  and  then  be  loosed  for  a  brief 
period.  This  is  in  line  with  the  Jewish  scheme  of  the  Messianic 
era,  according  to  which  the  advent  of  the  Deliverer  would  be 
preceded  by  a  time  of  trouble  —  the  birth-woes  of  the  new 
order  of  things.  The  hostile  world-powers,  hj^ostatized  by 
Ezekiel  in  the  name  of  Gog,  had  become  a  standing  eschato- 
logical  figure,  the  Antichrist.  He  was  the  incarnation  of  all 
that  is  evil,  the  exact  opposite  of  the  returning  Christ.  His- 
torically, he  owes  his  origin  to  the  Nero  of  the  apostolic  age 
who  is  apparently  meant  by  the  enigmatical  number  666 
(Rev.  xiii:i8),  given  as  the  number  of  the  beast.  Since  Nero 
had  not  returned,  as  the  apocalyptic  writer  expected,  it  was 
held  that  the  prophecy  was  still  to  be  fulfilled.  Irenaeus,  for 
example,  anticipates  the  coming  of  a  tyrant  whose  name  will 
have  the  numerical  value  of  666,  and  that  he  will  reign  three 


APOCALTPTIC   VAGARIES  183 

years  and  six  months  before  being  overthrown.'  It  would  be 
unprofitable  to  follow  the  attempts  which  have  been  made  all 
along  the  course  of  history  to  interpret  this  mysterious  number, 
the  latest  finding  it  in  the  name  of  the  German  Kaiser. 

The  year  1000  passed  without  any  especially  notable  in- 
terference of  Providence,  and  although  isolated  thinkers  still 
tried  their  hand  at  the  interpretation  of  prophecy,  no  general 
expectation  of  the  end  of  the  world  seems  to  have  been  enter- 
tained until  the  time  of  Joachim  of  Floris,  who  was  born  in 
1 145  and  died  in  12 01.  His  impulse  came  from  his  convic- 
tion of  the  decadence  of  the  Church,  its  efforts  after  worldly 
power,  its  impotence  to  secure  peace  in  the  world,  the  prev- 
alence of  heresy,  and  the  rapid  advance  of  the  Moslem  power. 
He  must  have  bieen  a  man  of  unusual  gifts,  for  he  had  many 
devoted  followers  who  saw  in  him  a  worker  of  miracles,  as  well 
as  an  inspired  prophet.  He  did  not  claim  to  be  a  prophet  in 
the  sense  that  he  received  new  revelations,  but  was  convinced 
that  he  had  the  gift  of  interpreting  Scripture.  He  was,  how- 
ever, the  child  of  his  age,  in  that  he  accepted  the  allegorical 
and  typical  interpretations,  and  also  in  that  he  believed  the 
monastic  orders  to  be  the  predestined  saviours  of  the  Church. 
His  general  theory  was  that  the  world's  history  would  fill 
three  periods.  The  first,  that  of  married  people,  was  repre- 
sented by  the  Old  Testament.  The  second,  that  of  the  clergy, 
was  represented  by  the  New  Testament.  The  third,  yet  to 
come,  would  be  that  of  the  monks,  and  would  have  the  true 
spiritual  interpretation  of  the  Bible.  In  each  period  he  dis- 
covered forty-two  generations  corresponding  to  each  other, 
although  the  Old  Testament  generations  covered  more  time 
than  the  others  because  of  the  greater  age  of  the  antediluvian 
Patriarchs.  In  the  first  period  Abraham,  Isaac  and  Jacob  are 
the  counterparts  of  Zacharias,  John,  and  Jesus  in  the  second. 
The  twelve  sons  of  Jacob  represent  the  twelve  Apostles  of 
Jesus.  Moses  and  Aaron  are  renewed  in  Paul  and  Barnabas. 
The  three  great  periods  are  assigned  to  Father,  Son,  and  Holy 
Spirit,  respectively.    The  forty-two  generations  of  the  second 

2  Contra  Hoereses,  V,  30. 


i84    ESSJrS  IN  BIBLICAL  INTERPRETATION 

era  would  end  in  the  year  1260,  and  the  new  heavens  and  new 
earth  would  then  appear.    This  climax  would  be  preceded  by 
the  appearance  of  the  traditional  Antichrist.     Joachim  went 
so  far  as  to  declare  in  the  year  1190  that  the  Antichrist  was 
already  born  though  he  had  not  yet  manifested  his  power. 
A  similar  announcement  had  been  made  a  century  earlier  by 
Archbishop  Ranieri  of  Florence.''    We  are  here  in  the  region 
of  unfulfilled  prophecy,  but  it  may  be  interesting  to  note  that 
the  identification  of  the  Pope  with  Antichrist,  which  we  have 
probably  supposed  to  be  a  Protestant  notion,  is  much  older 
than  the  Reformation.     It  is  found  at  least  as  early  as  the 
year  991,  and  was  then  openly  made  by  an  Archbishop  in  a 
Synod  at  Rheims.    It  reappears  at  different  intervals,  and  was 
of  course  welcome  to  the  Protestants,  in  whose  polemic  it 
became  a  staple  charge.     Millennial  expectations  revived  at 
the  Reformation,  and  Luther  is  said  to  have  remarked  that 
the  world  would  come  to  an  end  before  the  year  1548.    This 
is  a  recurrent  phenomenon  in  the  history  of  attempted  reforms. 
When  the  leader  in  any  movement  is  disappointed  at  the 
lethargy  of  his  followers  and  the  opposition  of  the  mass  of 
men,  he  looks  for  an  act  of  God  to  accomplish  what  seems 
beyond  human  power.     Protestant  revival  of  the  study  of 
Scripture  contributed  to  millenarian  anticipations.    Cocceius, 
whose  general  principles  we  studied  in  connection  with  the 
Federal  Theology,  interpreted  the  book  of  Daniel  as  con- 
taining a  scheme  of  the  world's  history  down  to  his  own  time. 
He  interpreted  the  vision  of  the  four  beasts  in  this  way:  The 
lion  is  the  kingdom  of  Constantine,  the  bear  represents  the 
Goths  and  Vandals,  the  leopard  is  identified  with  the  Muham- 
madan  power,  and  the  fourth  beast  is  the  empire  of  Charle- 
magne.   On  this  basis  the  Papal  power  of  course  becomes  the 
Antichrist  who  will  be  overcome  by  Jesus  at  his  second  com- 
ing, and  this  the  commentator  thought  could  not  be  far  away. 
The  disturbances  in  England  in  the  seventeenth  century 
gave  rise  to  apocalyptic  expectations.    Since  the  great  world- 

3  Doellinger,   The  Prophetic  Spirit  and  Prophecies  of  the  Christian  Era 
(1872),  p.  290. 


APOCALTPTIC   FAGARIES  185 

empires  of  Daniel  were  four  in  number,  the  Messianic  king- 
dom which  was  to  replace  them  was  called  the  Fifth  Mon- 
archy. Hence  the  movement  of  certain  revolutionists  is  known 
as  that  of  the  Fifth  Monarchy  Men.  Their  readiness  to  re- 
volt was  based  on  the  belief  that  the  three  and  a  half  years 
of  Daniel  were  now  at  an  end  and  their  exhortation  was: 
Therefore  up,  O  ye  saints,  to  take  the  kingdom  and  to  possess 
it,  for  the  gentiles  have  possessed  the  outer  court  for  this 
forty-two  months  and  'tis  now  time  to  arise,  yea  high  time 
to  deliver  thyself,  O  Sion,  and  shake  off  the  dust,  to  lay  waste 
the  land  of  Nimrod  with  the  sword.*  The  declaration  of  one 
of  these  sectaries  to  Cromwell  that  the  next  vial  to  be  poured 
out  is  a  scorching  hot  one,  and  must  fall  upon  the  apostate 
professors  that  have  forsaken  the  cause  of  Christ,  and  the 
same  man's  prediction  of  the  third  woe  now  at  hand,  shows 
how  the  Book  of  Revelation  had  taken  hold  of  men's  imagi- 
nations. In  spite  of  Cromwell's  services  to  the  Puritan  cause, 
there  were  not  wanting  those  who  identified  him  with  Anti- 
christ, or  with  the  Beast  which  is  in  essence  the  same  thing. 
The  interpretation  of  the  little  horn  in  Daniel  as  William  the 
Conqueror  and  his  descendants,  finally  cut  off  in  the  person 
of  Charles  I,  does  not  surprise  us,  nor  does  the  expectation 
of  the  revolutionists  that  they  will  carry  their  arms  as  far 
as  Rome,  which  they  expected  to  reach  in  1660.  Six  years 
later  their  movement  would  be  so  triumphant  (they  thought) 
that  all  the  world  would  be  convinced,  and  then  Christ  would 
reign  in  person,  destroying  all  those  kings,  priests,  and  law- 
yers, who  were  usurping  the  powers  that  belong  to  him  alone. 
Then  the  saints  would  rule  the  earth,  executing  vengeance  on 
all  his  enemies. 

It  may  be  thought  superfluous  to  describe  these  discredited 
expectations,  yet  they  have  their  use  in  showing  us  how  men, 
possessed  of  an  erroneous  idea  of  what  the  Bible  is,  may  be 
mistaken  in  the  deductions  they  make.  Not  long  after  the 
failure  of  the  Fifth  Monarchy  Men,  Robert  Fleming  pub- 

*  Rogers,  Some  Account  of  the  Life  and  Opinions  of  a  Fifth  Monarchy 
Man  (1867),  p.  301. 


i86    ESSJrS  IN   BIBLICAL   INTERPRETJTION 

lished  an  Apocalyptical  Key  which  has  had  considerable  in- 
fluence on  later  speculation.  This  book,  published  in  1701, 
gives  the  postulates  upon  which  the  author  supposes  all  ex- 
positors of  the  Apocalypse  to  agree.  They  are:  That  the 
Revelation  contains  the  series  of  all  the  remarkable  events 
and  changes  of  the  Christian  Church  until  the  end  of  the 
world;  that  the  mystical  Babylon  doth  signify  Rome  in  an 
antichristian  Church;  that  this,  therefore,  cannot  be  Rome 
pagan,  but  Rome  Papal;  and  that  the  seven  heads  of  the 
beast  are  the  seven  forms  of  government  which  obtained 
among  the  Romans.  A  further  postulate,  perhaps  the  one 
most  important  in  its  influence,  although  not  original  with 
Fleming,  is  that  where  days  are  spoken  of  in  the  Apocalypse, 
years  are  meant.  The  scheme  of  the  Apocalypse,  as  every 
reader  knows,  is  based  on  the  number  seven.  There  are  seven 
seals,  seven  trumpets,  and  seven  vials,  arranged  in  that  order. 
Fleming  finds  that  the  seven  seals  indicate  events  which  took 
place  between  the  writing  of  Revelation  and  the  year  337.  He 
then  traces  the  seven  trumpets,  making  them  show  the  history 
down  to  the  Reformation,  which  he  dates  in  1516.  The  seven 
vials  will  then  cover  the  period  from  that  time  down  to  the 
year  2000.  According  to  this,  Fleming  himself  was  living  in 
the  time  of  the  fifth  vial,  and  he  was  more  modest  than  most 
Millenarians  in  that  he  did  not  expect  the  great  crisis  to 
come  in  his  own  lifetime.  He  believed  that  the  1260  years 
of  the  traditional  exegesis,  however,  would  come  to  an  end 
in  1789,  or  rather  he  gives  his  readers  the  choice  between  that 
date  and  either  1848  or  1866. 

We  found  among  Fleming's  postulates  the  one  which  inter- 
preted the  days  of  the  Apocalyptic  writers  as  years.  The 
way  in  which  this  axiom,  as  I  may  call  it,  is  applied  by  the 
interpreters,  may  be  illustrated  from  a  work  now  forgotten 
which  was  written  in  the  years  1793,  1794,  and  1795,  and 
published  immediately  afterwards.^     Four  of  the  numerical 

5  Bicheno,  Explanation  of  Scripture  Prophecy.  The  Signs  of  the  Times, 
or  the  Dark  Prophecies  of  Scripture  illustrated  by  the  Application  of  Present 
Important  Events.     The  American  edition  is  dated  1796. 


APOCALYPTIC   FAG  ARIES  187 

data  of  Daniel  and  Revelation  are  made  the  basis  of  the 
author's  identification.  It  is  significant  that  the  book  or 
pamphlet  was  written  when  minds  were  agitated  by  the  events 
of  the  French  Revolution.  It  is  in  times  of  political  upheaval 
that  attention  is  called  to  apocalyptical  programs.  The  four 
numbers  which  concern  us  are:  first,  2300  found  in  Daniel 
viii:i4.  There  we  read  that  the  angel  assured  Daniel  that  the 
time  during  which  the  sanctuary  should  be  desecrated 
amounted  to  2300  evening-mornings.  The  interest  of  the  in- 
quirer in  the  daily  morning  and  evening  sacrifice  of  the  temple 
accounts  for  the  form  of  the  answer.  What  distressed  him 
was  that  the  regular  worship  of  God,  which  consisted  in  the 
bringing  of  these  two  sacrifices,  was  no  longer  offered.  The 
suspension  then  was  to  last  so  many  mornings  and  evenings, 
or  1 1 50  days.  Later  the  writer  gives  us  another  terminus 
for  the  persecution  in  the  words  *'a  time,  times  and  a  half" 
(xii:7,  also  in  vii:25).  Revelation  borrows  this  figure,  but 
gives  the  equivalent  as  forty-two  months  or  1 2  60  days. 
Daniel  again  gives  us  1290  days,  and  in  immediate  sequence 
1335  (xii:ii  and  12).  Critical  conjectures  concerning  the 
reason  for  these  apparently  discordant  statements  need  not 
now  be  developed.  The  interpreters  whom  we  have  in  mind 
take  all  of  them  as  part  of  the  infallible  revelation,  and  make 
all  of  them  mean  years  instead  of  days. 

Now  it  is  obvious  that  by  making  any  given  year  the  ter- 
minus of  the  alleged  period  and  reckoning  backwards  a 
terminus  a  quo  can  be  found.  This  seems  to  be  the  method 
of  Bicheno.  Assuming  that  the  events  of  the  French  Revo- 
lution were  predicted  in  Scripture,  he  reckoned  backward  to 
find  the  starting  point  of  the  predicted  period.  Thus,  from 
the  year  1789  we  subtract  1260,  one  of  the  revealed  figures, 
and  we  come  to  529.  In  this  year  the  Code  of  Justinian  was 
published,  "the  stronghold  of  clerical  tyranny,"  and  about  the 
same  time,  we  are  assured,  the  Bishop  of  Rome  was  recognized 
by  the  Emperor  as  having  supreme  judicial  power.  Taking 
the  next  figure  (1290),  which  is  just  thirty  years  more, 
we  assume  that  the  conflict  with  the  Antichrist  which  began 


i88    ESSJrS  IN  BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

in  1789,  will  last  thirty  years.  Therefore,  the  Millennium 
will  dawn  in  181 9.  And  this  is  confirmed  by  another  cal- 
culation based  on  the  number  2300,  taken  again  to  mean  so 
many  years.  In  the  year  481  b.c  Xerxes  set  out  to  invade 
Greece.  From  this  date  the  2300  years  bring  us  again  to 
1819  A.D. 

It  may  seem  unprofitable  to  dwell  longer  on  these  aber- 
rations as  we  must  call  them,  but  two  more  may  be  briefly 
mentioned  because  they  are  of  American  origin.  One  of  these 
is  the  calculation  of  William  Miller,  which  had  considerable 
vogue  in  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Miller's 
book  consists  of  a  series  of  lectures  published  in  collected 
form  in  1842.  But  the  lectures  had  been  delivered  at  differ- 
ent times  as  far  back  as  the  year  1833.  The  title  sufficiently 
indicates  the  author's  belief:  Evidence  from  Scripture  and 
History,  of  the  Second  Coming  of  Christ  about  the  Year  1843. 
The  calculation  is  similar  to  that  of  Fleming.  The  terminus 
a  quo  of  the  2300  years  is  assumed  to  be  the  time  of  the  decree 
for  the  rebuilding  of  Jerusalem  (457  b.c.  according  to  Miller), 
and  the  end  will  then  come  in  1843.  "Or  take  70  weeks  of 
years,  being  490  years,  from  2300  and  it  will  leave  1810 
after  Christ's  death.  Add  his  life  (because  we  begin  to 
reckon  our  time  at  his  birth),  which  is  33  years,  and  we  come 
to  the  same  a.d  1843."  ^ 

The  second  American  calculation  is  that  of  Pastor  Russell, 
already  alluded  to.  His  reckoning  is  like  the  others,  that  is, 
it  is  based  on  the  theory  that  days  are  put  for  years.  Taking 
the  seven  times  mentioned  by  Daniel,  he  supposes  them  to 
mean  seven  periods  of  360  years  each.  These  2520  years 
would  bring  us,  beginning  with  Zedekiah  (606  e.g.),  to  1914? 
which  is,  therefore,  the  year  of  the  Second  Coming.  The 
Pastor  was  consistent  in  that  he  supposed  Christ  actually  to 
have  come  to  earth  again,  but  to  be  hidden  from  view  until 
he  shall  choose  to  reveal  himself.  It  is  perhaps  superfluous 
to  point  out  that  according  to  the  best  authorities  Zedekiah 
did  not  come  to  the  throne  until  597,  and  that  we  have  no 

6  Evidence,  p.  54. 


APOCALYPTIC   VAC  ARIES  189 

trace  of  a  Hebrew  year  of  360  days.  The  Hebrew  year  was 
a  lunar  year  brought  into  accord  with  the  solar  by  the  inter- 
calation of  a  month  whenever  necessary.  Seven  years  on  this 
system  would  not  differ  greatly  from  seven  of  our  years,  so 
that  if  Daniel  meant  seven  great  years,  the  end  would  not 
come  as  was  calculated,  but  would  still  be  some  fifty  years 
away.  Interest  in  an  event  fifty  years  away  would  be  much 
less  acute  than  in  one  which  is  expected  at  once. 

Applying  this  to  the  situation  of  the  apocalj^Dtic  writers, 
whether  Daniel  or  John,  we  can  see  the  fallacy  of  supposing 
them  to  have  any  interest  in  that  which,  by  hypothesis,  was 
to  happen  two  thousand  years  in  the  future.  As  we  have 
seen,  the  apocalypses  were  the  agonizing  cry  of  men  under  per- 
secution, looking  for  an  immediate  intervention  of  God  on 
behalf  of  His  Church.  On  the  Millennarian  hypothesis  they 
were  told  that  the  conflicts,  trials  and  persecutions  of  the 
saints  will  last  nineteen  hundred,  or  twenty-three  hundred, 
years.  It  is  hard  to  imagine  more  cruel  mockery  than  such 
a  revelation  would  be.  We  have  already  seen  that  the  effect 
of  the  books  was  in  fact  to  raise  the  courage  of  those  under 
trial.  It  would  be  impious  to  suppose  that  the  divine  purpose 
was  to  deceive  the  sufferers  by  raising  false  expectations. 
Moreover,  the  fundamental  postulate  of  this  whole  series  of 
interpretations,  namely,  that  where  days  are  mentioned  in 
the  documents,  years  are  intended,  is  false.  There  is  no 
reason  to  suppose  that  when  Daniel  names  2300  evenings  and 
mornings,  he  means  anything  but  literal  evenings  and  morn- 
ings, for  his  interest  was  in  the  daily  acts  of  worship 
offered  at  those  periods.  In  the  same  way,  when  the  New  Tes- 
tament writer  says  he  is  telling  what  is  shortly  to  come  to 
pass,  and  gives  forty-two  months  as  the  time  of  tribulation 
we  must  take  him  at  his  word.  And  this  is  confirmed  by  his 
statement  that  the  seven  heads  of  the  beast  are  seven  kings, 
of  whom  five  are  fallen,  one  is,  and  one  is  yet  to  come.  This 
can  only  mean  that  there  are  to  be  seven  Roman  emperors  in 
all;  only  one  more  reign  before  the  grand  consummation. 

The  result  of  such  an  inquiry  as  we  have  now  made  (and 


I90    ESSJrS   IN  BIBLICAL   INTERPRETATION 

the  number  of  false  calculations  might  have  been  increased 
almost  indefinitely)  should  be  to  show  the  need  of  a  really 
historical  treatment  of  the  apocal5^tic  literature.  That  lit- 
erature has  a  well  defined  place  in  the  history  of  human 
thought.  Among  Jews,  Zoroastrians,  Christians  and  Muham- 
madans,  it  has  developed  along  similar  lines.  It  is  the  product 
of  religious  hope  in  times  of  despondency.  It  has  no  con- 
ception of  the  working  of  natural  law  in  the  world  of  nature  or 
of  man.  It  looks  for  a  catastrophic  interference  of  God  in 
the  affairs  of  the  nations.  It  doubts  the  efficacy  of  human 
effort,  and  the  reality  of  human  progress.  And  if  the  objector 
says:  If  Daniel  expected  the  Messiah  in  the  near  future,  or  if 
John  thought  the  Second  Coming  was  near  at  hand,  they  were 
not  inspired  —  we  can  only  reply:  If  by  inspired  you  mean 
supernaturally  informed  of  any  exact  dates  for  supernatural 
interference  in  human  affairs,  the  objection  holds  good.  The 
repeated  attempts  to  make  these  authors  tell  us  of  the  course 
of  history,  show  the  fallacy  of  expecting  that  sort  of  revela- 
tion. What  the  Apocalyptic  John  did  was  to  set  forth  in 
glowing  imagery  the  faith  that  even  in  the  darkest  hours  God 
is  caring  for  His  own,  and  that  at  the  last  all  will  be  well 
with  them.  That  he  did  this  in  imagery  that  came  to  him 
from  Jewish  tradition,  and  that  he  made  use  of  language  and 
figures  which  were  of  his  time  and  his  race,  shows  only  that  he 
was  a  man.    This  is  what  the  expositor  needs  to  learn. 


Reviewing  the  ground  gone  over  in  these  essays,  we  are 
tempted  to  say  that  we  have  simply  noted  certain  forms  of 
human  error.  But  this  would  be  a  narrow  view.  It  is  indeed 
clear  to  us  at  this  more  advanced  stage  of  thought  that  in 
the  Pentateuch  the  Jew  has  not  a  complete  and  final  code  of 
ethics  unchangeable  for  all  time.  But  on  the  other  hand 
there  are  in  the  Book  lessons  for  him  and  for  all  mankind. 
Think  what  the  Decalogue  has  been  through  the  centuries  or 
that  summing  up  of  the  Law  and  the  Prophets  which  Jesus 
urged  in  the  two  great  commandments!     Again,  from  our 


APOCALTPTIC   VAGARIES  191 

point  of  view,  it  is  plain  that  the  dogmatic  theologian  is 
wrong  in  forcing  from  Scripture  by  allegory  and  type  a  re- 
vealed philosophy,  a  faith  once  for  all  delivered  to  the  saints. 
But  if  the  Bible  is  not  this,  it  is  much  more  —  it  is  the  record 
of  the  religious  experience  of  men  terribly  in  earnest  in  seeking 
for  God.  And  this  record  is  one  of  struggle  and  conflict. 
Rightly  interpreted,  these  books  show  us  how  the  higher 
and  purer  religion  overcame  the  lower  and  partial  conceptions 
of  God  and  of  His  will.  Further,  from  our  point  of  view  we 
are  convinced  that  the  Millennarian  is  wrong  in  supposing 
that  he  can  from  these  documents  discover  when  the  present 
world-order  will  be  ended  by  a  special  revelation  of  the  Lord 
from  heaven.  But  it  still  remains  true  that  these  documents 
are  forward-looking,  that  the  men  who  wrote  them  had  an 
unconquerable  faith  in  the  righteousness  of  God,  and  an 
abiding  hope  that  His  rule  would  become  a  reality,  and  the 
kingdoms  of  the  world  would  acknowledge  His  sway.  In  fine, 
the  Bible  is  a  book  of  religion.  Reflecting  the  experience  of 
believers  in  earlier  ages,  it  makes  its  appeal  to  all  who  seek 
for  God  in  the  time  now  present. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL    NOTE 

The  titles  of  most  of  the  works  cited  in  the  essays  are 
given  in  the  notes.  The  following  works  treat  more  or  less 
fully  of  the  history  of  exegesis. 

Simon  (Richard),  Histoire  Critique  du  Vieux  Testament.  The  first  edition 
was  suppressed.  The  second  appeared  at  Amsterdam  in  1685.  The  third 
part  of  the  work  discusses  the  best  method  of  translating  the  Bible,  and 
criticizes  the  principal  commentators.  This  part  was  translated  into  Ger- 
man and  published  under  the  title:  Richardi  Simonii  Historia  Critica  Cotn- 
mentatorum  prmcipuorum  V.  ^  N.  T.  in  1713.  It  was  prefaced  by  an 
extended  Historia  Theologice  Exegeticce  bey  den  Juden,  Christen,  Mukatn- 
medaner  und  Heyden,  the  work  of  J.  F.  Reimmans. 

RosENiruLLER  (J.  G.),  Historia  Interpretationis  Librorum  Sacrorum  in  Ecclesia 
Christiana,  five  volumes  (179S  to  1814).  Preliminary  studies  for  this 
work  seem  to  have  been  published  in  the  five  university  programs  trans- 
lated into  German  under  the  title:  Herrn  D.  J.  G.  Rosenmiillers  Abhand- 
lung  von  den  Schicksalen  der  Schrijterkldrung  in  der  Christlichen  Kirche 

(1791)- 

Meyer  (G.  W.),  Geschichte  der  Schrijterkldrung  seit  der  Wiederherstellung 
der  Wissenschaften,  three  volumes   (1802   to  1804). 

DiESTEL  (LuDwiG),  Geschichtc  des  Alien  Testaments  in  der  Christlichen  Kirche 
(1869).     Still  the  most  complete  work  for  the  period  it  covers. 

Farrar  (F.  W.),  History  of  Interpretation,  Eight  Lectures  Preached  before 
the  University  of  Oxford  in  the  Year  MDCCCLXXXV.  The  book  is  a 
plea  for  a  moderately  liberal  doctrine  of  inspiration.  It  ignores  the  ad- 
vance made  by  Wellhausen  and  defended  by  W.  Robertson  Smith. 

WoGUE  (L.),  Histoire  de  la  Bible  et  de  I'exegese  Biblique  jusqu'a  nos  Jours 
(1881).     This  work  is  devoted  to  Jewish  exegesis. 

Gilbert  (George  Holley),  Interpretation  of  the  Bible,  a  Short  History 
(1908).  An  excellent  introduction  to  the  subject,  treating  both  Old  Tes- 
tament and  New. 

FuLLERTON  (Kemper),  Prophccy  and  Authority,  a  Study  in  the  History  of  the 
Doctrine  and  Interpretation  of  Scripture  (19x9).  The  latest  and  one  of 
the  best  discussions  of  the  subject. 


193 


INDEX 


Abel's  Sacrifice,  149 
Abijah's  Rebuke,  159 
Abraham,  a  type,  42 
Adam's  religion,  112 
Adventists,  176 
Allegory,  Jewish,  22 
Allegory  among  the  Greeks,  35 
Allegory  in  the  Bible,  39 
Altars,  Local,  147 
Ambrose,  56 
Analogy  of  Faith,  81 
Anthropomorphism,  11 
Antichrist,  The,  182 
Antinomianism,  84 
Apocalypse  of  John,  179 
Apocalypses,  178 
Apocr3T)ha,  87 
Aristeas,  Letter  of,  43  f . 
Asideans,  The,  14 
Astruc,  no 
Atonement,  165 
Augustine,  56,  182 
Authenticity,  Question  of,  132 

Barnabas,  Epistle  of,  46 
Bekker,  Baltazar,  100 
Bible  and  Astronomy,  122 
Biblical  History,  92 
Bible-reading,  114 
Biblical  Dogmatics,  126 
Biblical  Theology,  1 20 
Biblical  Theology,  Books  on,  125 
Bicheno,  186 
Bird-victim,  165 
Blood,  The,  152 
Blood,  Use  of  the,  150 


Canaanite  Religion,  148 
Canon,  The,  118 
Cappellus,  89 
Casuistry,  Jewish,  18,  21 
Catena  Aurea,  64 
Cherubim,  109 

Christ  in  the  Old  Testament,  50 
Christology,  139 
Chronicler,  Motive  of  the,  10 
Church,  Corruption  of  the,  182 
Church  Organization,  59 
Circvuncision  Blood,  168 
Clean  and  Unclean,  43,  47,  159 
Clement  of  Alexandria,  51 
Clementine  Recognitions,  55 
Cocceius,  96 

Cocceius'  Millenarianism,  184 
Colenso,  128 
Colenso,  Trial  of,  132 
Colenso  condemned,  133 
Collegia  Biblica,  114 
Collegia  Pietatis,  113 
Commentators,  Method  of,  13 
Comparative  Study,  107 
Compilation  of  Books,  5 
Conservation  of  the  Text,  12 
Controversy,  Protestant,  85 
Council  of  Trent,  82,  85 
Covenant  at  Sinai,  150 
Covenant  Code,  The,  161 
Covenant  of  Grace,  96 
Covenants,  Doctrine  of,  95 
Creation,  Story  of  the,  11 
Creed  Allegorized,  The,  71 
Criticism,  3 
Customary  Law,  170 


Cainites,  The,  49 
Calovius,  90 
Calvin,  82 


Danger  of  Defilement,  163 
Daniel,  Book  of,  178 
Date  of  the  Advent,  180 


195 


196 


INDEX 


Davidson,  Samuel,  139 

Days  for  Years,  187 

Defilement,  163 

Defilement  by  a  Corpse,  172 

Desert  Sojourn,  The,  129 

Deuteronomy,  151 

Deuteronomy  and  the  Priests,  156 

Development  of  the  Priesthood,  157 

De  Wette,  126 

Dicta  Probantia,  gi 

Difl&culties  of  the  Pentateuch,  129 

Disease,  Defilement  of,  164 

Divine  Plan  of  History,  180 

Documents,  Order  of  the,  144 

Ecclesiastes,  Jewish  Comments  on,  26 

Ecclesiastical  Revenues,  154 

Egyptian  Parallels,  108 

Egyptian  Religion,  35  f. 

Eichhorn,  137 

Eisenmenger,  29 

Eliezer,  25 

Elijah,  144 

Enoch,  Book  of,  181 

Epistolae  Obscurorum  Virorum,  69 

Essays  and  Reviews,  134 

Excommunication,  164 

Ezekiel,  146 

Ezekiel,  Importance  of,  138 

Ezekiel's  Point  of  View,  151 

Ezekiel's  Program,  177 

Farrar's  Judgment,  29 
Federal  School,  The,  94 
Festival  Offerings,  150 
Fifth  Monarchy,  The,  185 
Fleming,  Robert,  185 
Fourfold  Sense,  57 
Francke,  A.  H.,  114 

Gabler,  120 
Geddes,  135 

Genesis,  Sources  of,  no 
Genesis  xv,  95 
Genius  Loci,  168 
Guilt,  Sense  of,  166 
Gibeon,  Sanctuary  at,  145 
Gideon's  Altar,  147 


Gnostic  Interpretation,  48 
Greek  Influence,  a 
Greek  Version,  15,  33 

Haggada,  22 
Haggai's  Question,  159 
Halaka,  19 
Hare,  Francis,  70 
Harmonistics,  27  f. 
Harmonistics,  Protestant,  86 
Hero-stories,  7 
Higher  Criticism,  136 
Highplaces,  144 
Highpriest's  Garments,  42 
Historical  Outline,  143 
Hengstenberg,  138 
Herbert  of  Cherbury,  118 
Herder,  121 
Holiness  Code,  162 
Homer  allegorized,  37 
Home's  Introduction,  139 
Hugo  of  St.  Victor,  65 

Impurity  of  Childbirth,  164 
Indulgences,  76 
Inerrancy  AflSrmed,  132 
Inspiration,  88,  115 
Irenaeus,  50 

Isaiah  and  the  Ritual,  160 
Isidore,  63 

Jealousy  Ordeal,  171 
Jerusalem,  The  New,  179 
Jewish  Customs  Defended,  43 
Joachim  of  Floris,  183 
Josiah,  146 
Joshua's  Vision,  169 
Jubilees,  Book  of,  8 
Judaism,  Postexilic,  144 
Judges,  Book  of,  7 
Judges  17  and  18,  6 
Justin  Mart5T,  46 

Kings  and  Chronicles,  5 

Korah,  154 

Krishna  Allegorized,  71 

Law,  The  Jewish,  14 

Law  and  the  Gospel,  79,  86 


INDEX 


igy 


Law  of  the  Church,  133 

Law  offered  to  the  Nations,  32 

Leper,  The,  165 

Lessing,  123 

Levites,  Ezekiel's  Plan,  155 

Levites,  Restrictions  on,  154 

Levites  in  Chronicles,  The,  140 

Literary  Study  of  the  Bible,  122 

Logos,  The,  41 

Lowth,  122 

Luther,  74 

Luther  and  Allegory,  78 

Luther's  Bible,  76 

Luther's  Criterion,  78 

Luther's  Theses,  75 

Marcion,  49 

Mastema,  The  Evil  Spirit,  9 

Mathematical  DiflSculties,  1 29 

Melanchthon,  80,  82 

Midianites,  Slaughter  of  the,  173 

Midrash,  20,  22 

Miller,  WilUam,  188 

Monotheism,  142 

Morin,  89, 103 

Mosaic  Authorship,  141 

Myths,  Greek,  34 

Nature  and  the  Bible,  117 
Nero,  182 
Newman,  71 
Nicholas  of  Lyra,  73 
Noah's  Sacrifice,  150 
Numerical  Clues,  23  f. 

Obscurities  of  the  Bible,  91 
Oracle,  The,  157 
Origen,  52 
Ovid,  Allegories  in,  69 

Passover  in  the  Desert,  130 
Patriarchal  Altars,  145 
Patriarchs,  Theology  of  the,  92 
Pentateuchal  Code,  The,  17 
Periods  of  History,  183 
Philo,  Biblical  Antiquities  of,  8 
Philo  Judaeus,  39 
Pietism,  113 


Place  of  Worship,  The,  144 

Plato's  Influence,  41 

Plutarch,  35 

Pope  as  Antichrist,  The,  184 

Prediction  in  the  Old  Testament,  45 

Priesthood,  The,  153 

Priestly  Ideal,  60 

Priestly  Traditions,  153 

Priestly  Writer,  The,  131 

Predictive  Prophecy,  176 

Process,  Ecclesiastical,  132 

Prometheus,  38 

Proper  Names  Allegorized,  62 

Prophet,  Meaning  of  the  Word,  176 

Prophetic  Denunciation,  147 

Prophets,  The  Earlier,  158 

Prophets,  Teaching  of  the,  160 

Purification  of  the  Leper,  165 

Quenstedt,  89 

Rabbi,  Honor  of  the,  31 
Rabbinical  Point  of  View,  17 
Red  Color,  174 
Red  Heifer,  The,  46,  172 
Reformers,  73 
Religious  Motive,  10 
Ritual  Offenses,  152 
Russell,  Pastor,  188 

Sabbath,  The,  43 

Sabbath  Observed  in  Heaven,  9 

Sacredness  (Sanctity),  152,  162 

Sacrifice  to  the  Dead,  171,  174 

Sacrificial  Worship,  149 

Scholasticism,  Protestant,  98 

Second  Advent,  The,  179 

Semler,  118 

Seven,  The  Nimiber,  181 

Sevenfold  Sense,  62 

Seventy  Years  of  Exile,  1 78 

Sexual  Taboo,  164 

Shema,  The,  20 

Simon,  Richard,  104 

Sin  and  Atonement,  161 

Sinai,  Covenant  at,  95,  97 

Sin-offering,  The,  164 

Slaying  of  Animals,  151 


198 


INDEX 


Socinians,  102 

Solomon  at  Gibeon,  145 

Song  of  Songs,  The,  70 

Sources  of  the  Pentateuch,  137 

Spencer,  John,  106 

Spener,  113 

Spinoza,  105 

Study  of  the  Law,  30 

Substitution,  165 

Synagogue,  The,  15 

Taboo  of  Animals,  109 

Talmud,  The,  19 

Targums,  15 

Testimony  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  87 

Text,  Purity  of  the,  89 

Textual  Criticism,  90 

Thomas  Aquinas,  65,  68 

Tindal,  117 

Tithes,  The,  156 

Tora,  159 

Tradition,  Catholic,  66 

Tradition,  Jewish,  4,  17  f. 

Tradition  and  Scripture,  28 


Twelve,  The  Number,  181 
Tychonius,  Rules  of,  61 
Types  of  Christ,  63 
Typology,  99 

Uncleanness,  21 
Unwitting  Sins,  164 

Vatke,  138 

Virgil  Allegorized,  67 

Von  Coelln,  126 

Wellhausen,  140 
Witchcraft,  100 
Witchcraft  Attacked,  141 
Witsius,  98 
World-Sabbath,  The,  181 

Zachariae,  124 

Zadok,  Family  of,  156 

Zeus,  Myth  of,  38 

Zinzendorf,  119 

Zulu's  Objections,  The,  12J 


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